Medlar Comfits

upcoming in A Season in Carcosa, editor: Joseph S. Pulver Sr.

2012-01-24T16:37:00.010+10:30

Joseph S. Pulver Sr. is not only mad, but could inspire a clot of mud to throw off the shoe and dance.

I know, because he dug this clot (your correspondent) out of a pit and flung it in crazewards. Only because of Joe, "Wolf King" exists, and will be one story in a collection of absolutely unexpectables by authors I am honoured and tickled to rub pages with.

This is how he describes the volume:

A Season In Carcosa will be similar in feel and direction to Ellen Datlow’s stunning Lovecraft Unbound, but I’ll be mining the King In Yellow work of Robert W. Chambers.

Here's the lineup so far, and—!!!—it's not complete.

Joel Lane
Don Webb
Ann K. Schwader
Simon Strantzas
Edward Morris
Richard Gavin
Joseph S. Pulver
Michael Kelly
Richard Lupoff
Daniel Mills
Allyson Bird
Gary McMahon
Cate Gardner

That cover is by Danielle Serra—and is, I think, a perfect example of great illustration. It has its own integrity, sprinkles its own itchpowder into our capacity for curiosity, is a story in itself, but what story? We can never 'know' just as no one person can 'know' a story painted in words any more than anyone should teach them.

As for Joseph S. Pulver the author, here's his latest novel, unleashed by an extraordinary publisher, Chômu Press.

I must upheave some impressions being spread about this author who is known for his sorcery with horror, hardboiled crime, filth, the colour black (in French). He is also known for his works that are 'Lovecraftian' and others inspired by Chambers. As for Chambers, I'll quote what I replied to Mr Pulver when he very kindly and generously broached me trying to write a story for A Season in Carcosa: "I think that you are a writer of great worth, but I don't think Chambers was."

And I still mean that. He's a great enough editor that he was tickled that I love Chambers as well as I love Lovecraft. He does have a side that might be insidious. He is highly seductive. After another letter from him, I couldn't wait to dig my fingers into Chambers.

But back to that master of horror, Mr Pulver.

What hasn't been mentioned, but should be: Joseph Pulver is above all, a romantic. Take, say, his latest novella, "And this is where I go down into the darkness", in Phantasmagorium Issue #1 edited by Laird Barron.

It's a tragic love story that Stevenson would have admired and recommended to his friends, and Poe would have denigrated in envious spite. As to the cynical pose workshopped story that is in imitation of another rampant irritating imitating posturing conceited bore, written by someone whose scariest incident in life is a crit, and whose sum of experience of noir is watching a movie in a dark room, Joe's been around. It shows. Perhaps that's why he doesn't have that pose, any pose.

Many loquacious poets would drool, unhinged, at his prose that is poetry, because what seems like an effortless Hendrixan riff is as painstakingly controlled as any virtuosic spewfling is. Then there's the visual artist. In common with real artists, he sees the value of unfilled space. By that, I mean he cares about the way sentences and paragraphs are constructed—how that changes the way words fall on the page, veering meaning, tempo, mood.

But there's a whole other side of Pulver, too, what I'll call the dark side of the moon because on that side, you can't see that the moon is laughing its face off. Pulver is nonsensically hilariously accurate. He's also as foudroyant as a Spanish dancer sea slug, wielding his baroquity as purposefully as the nudibranch.

In human terms, if I had to compare him to other authors, I would say that he reminds me more of a mug of hot Lear blended with Cummings, served with a squeeze of post-enema'd Shelley.

One fantasy I have of Pulver: He takes over Mills & Boon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Highly recommended diversion:
Why I like nudibranchs , marine slugs with verve by Dr Hans Bertsch, one of my favourite humans. This article is a a feature that I inveigled the splendiferously curious Dr to write for my Virtuous Medlar Circle.

Thar she blows!

2012-01-19T10:12:00.003+10:30

Just as history sinks every headline today
so we forget proverbs that grans used to say.
O cry foul at the captain who says that he tripped
and fell in the lifeboat that gave him a lift.
Froth and bother! but listen for ghosts who now quip:
There's many a slip twixt cap and ship.

The thinking person's tonic

2011-12-27T12:09:00.013+10:30

It doesn't take a plant, even one called selfheal.

Note: I originally posted an (unsweetened) ' The thinking person's tonic ' a year ago and removed it shortly after in a fit of reticence. Just days ago I declared I wasn't going to put anything on my blog again till Crandolin's announcement, but I've been asked to repost the Tonic for people who dread this time of year. Because the original draught was not only plain but possibly bitter, this version is sweetened with Prunella plus.

"I feel as though I should explain fully why I've barely picked up a pen until recently. Only recently have I become interested in writing fiction again - I spent much of the past two years in a longish period of melancholia and self-doubt during which I lost nearly all interest and confidence in myself as a writer."

I must reply immediately to what you say about melancholia, and your feelings of self-doubt. I wish you'd let me know about this, for I had no idea. You struck me from the first time I saw your writing, as an exceptional human being. Part of the unwanted innards that comes with that exceptionalism is, unfortunately, self-doubt even unto self-hating, melancholy (I'm so glad you didn't call it 'depression', the mislabeling that really means in our business-oriented world: prescribe and medicate). I have been almost wanting to write about this sort of thing in public, but haven't for a number of reasons. But the fact is, there is a huge pressure put upon everyone in 'modern' society, to be 'happy'. Indeed, happiness is touted as the goal of life. Studies show that religious people are happiest. Of course they are! Not questioning anything, swallowing dogma, and being told that you are right and all you have to do is follow, is great for making someone free of doubt, especially if doubt is decreed as bad. These people keep doubt-free by going out and shoving dogma down other people's throats, kind of like the way Ponzi-schemes work, or chain letters. Don't ever stop. Don't ever get out of it, and everything'll be sweet. It's soma under a different name.

But the fact that you picked science--questioning, thinking, not accepting any dogma. The fact that you are deeply interested in the world at large, in all its conflicting reality and confusing manifestations of conundrums. These facts don't add up to you being a happy, dull, boring and useless, or—as many religious people are, downright destructive—person.

a case for curiosity

You are creative and questioning in your bones. You deeply feel. You have an ability and wish to get in other people's shoes, even when they hurt. You want to contribute something of yourself that is useful, not only to the world theoretically, but to people in real flesh.

These abilities and characteristics and ways of life that add up to YOU are not going to give you a happy life, but they could give you a very fulfilling life. You will always, if you stay true to who you are, have times that come upon you that are black as the pit below deepest Pitsville. You won't think that there is any way out, but there is, and you will find yourself out of there again, and somehow invigorated and creative again. Sometimes you need to find that others think of you quite differently than you view yourself. Even when you want to hide away, you are being thought of, though you probably don't know it.

We live in an extremely tough time for a person who really thinks, who isn't just just a reactor. You are way too intelligent and creative and thoughtful to find the public sphere electronically speaking, supportive and helpful to you as a person. You could find that it makes you feel insecure, that it makes you feel like a failure. That you think you are irrelevant. That is because the public sphere of talk is peopled overwhelmingly by extroverts who find thoughtfulness a detraction. So if this has anything to do with your feelings, I hope this gives some perspective.

As to [not getting a response from a submission after an inordinate time], damn. One of the worst aspects of life today is the casual rudeness. The only thing to do is to chalk it up to people who are less than you, and move on.

I hope I can give you some confidence that you surely deserve. Remember always that melancholia is a thinking person's tonic. It tastes bad, but it works.

" Thank bling there are more things on earth than your tonic and philosophy.
I like metallic vehicles, though they're not as bright as me."

If you could only hear me sing …

2011-12-25T16:31:00.015+10:30

You'd know my true name has a dulcet ring.
Season's greetings to you humans, anyway.

& on behalf of all us magnificent (if I do say so myself) insignificants,
happy treasure-hunting/finding. Keep your head down and your house uncleaned and your greens unkempt.
This space will remain the same for some time, with me in pride of place
(until the ~~dictator~~ ~~czarina~~ patron of this place announces the appearance of a certain Crandolin, hopefully, tra la la, never).

— Prunella Vulgaris

Psst, don't tell PV, but we hope Crandolin, whoever that is, will bump PV off this spot soon, for we fear that PV, now size nothing-to-speak-of, will swell, with attention, to Ego. And we don't know if you've heard Prunella sing, but …
— ∞ MI's - PV

"I've always been terribly ambitious."

2011-12-23T11:12:00.003+10:30

"And besides, life isn't ALL about predatory gastropods."

If I did SF covers:

2011-12-20T14:00:00.002+10:30

Under a mushroom and that port wine birthmark

2011-12-20T13:09:00.002+10:30

"Though some suggested that he might have his prominent port wine birthmark surgically removed, Gorbachev opted not to, as once he was publicly known to have the mark, he believed it would be perceived as his being more concerned with his appearance than other more important issues."
- Wikipedia entry for Mikhail Gorbachev

But did everyone get the memo?

THE IMMACULATED MACULATION
Irkutsk 1990

"Patriotically, I refuse to paint a port wine birthmark. Make it vodka, or I'll let them see borscht!"

Living, naming, shaping, lusting, tasting, telling

2011-12-19T17:33:00.007+10:30

Whether intended or not, there's an otherworldly harmony in this month's infinity plus singles releases.

Jurassic and the Great Tree
by Keith Brooke

(See also the new infinity plus edition of Brooke's The Accord, a definition-changing mindtwister of where you could rest your head, and a suspenseful love story.)

The Euonymist
by Neil Williamson

The Sculptor
by Garry Kilworth

Lizard Lust
by Lisa Tuttle

Valley of the Sugars of Salt
by Anna Tambour

Dinner with Strangers and the Old Choko

2011-12-19T16:51:00.011+10:30

We dined, that dinner,
on onomatopoeia soup
sweepstakes with gravitas
gamuts of carpathians
sautéed appalachians
fricasseed aspirings
currant fool and sleaze.

The tabletalk — delicious!
heady splenetic methelglyn
barnacle-fed blue comfits
shocklit cake and feacle tart,
apoplectic mead.

A gong, those houri'd hours
of pipes and pans — anon now
as who is you.
The question is:
to me, to you, to meet you,
the plural and the singular —
Friends for a lifetime? once in a lifetime?
Not could we, but should we
break meat at table anniversaring?
Well, I will chance to greet you
dressed for anniversaring,
meet you for the gamuts and onomatopoeia soup,
for tabletalk and catchup.

Let's meet up in the middle of the
corner of the street.
Let's meet on a night like this one,
with darkness as unplumbable
as our deepest friendship,
when black as eye's pupil
the moon drowns
deep as murder in the marshes of the fen.

Let's meet up, my festal friends
deliciously anticipant,
I'll meet you
precisely
at half past when.

Citizen-enhanced signery

2011-12-18T14:29:00.001+10:30

The Courier's New Bicycle - Should go far

2011-12-18T13:39:00.007+10:30

Just posted on the Amazon Kindle edition site, but this posting has added links.

This highly readable, important though not self-consciously Important, novel, deserves a footnote about the cultural context of zealotry, bigotry, and religion-mandated oppression that Kim Westwood paints so well. The story takes place in an eerily recognisable near future, in the lanes and post-Industrial lots of Australia's other big city, Melbourne; though "No one could have predicted what the flu pandemic ten years ago would bring."

Westwood's protagonist, Salisbury Forth, is self-defined as "Genderbent and happy, that's me."—'happy' being as bravura as singing "I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK" in the face of a monster. It's not easy living within the strictures of the new morality laws; and living outside them takes its toll on the body, on friendships and love. But no matter how secure people seem to be, how well-connected or comfortable, they are constantly being tested, and tempted. Loyalty, trust, 'community', personal ambition and biological needs and wants. The nature of societal and personal hypocrisy is beautifully explored, as violent bible-thumpers literally search the streets, looking for transgressors; and black markets thrive. Animals as factories are another theme here. And just when it seems as if PETA is rearing its head to take a chomp out of what is, after all, a page-turner of a mystery story, another great theme gaffs that beast. Zealotry itself is shown in full light, the breathing patient of it, opened up on the table of Westwood's not insensitive scrutiny.

This is a remarkable novel in many ways. It never panders, never sinks to stereotypes, and doesn't flinch. That this takes place in Australia is entirely believable, but for a different reason than if it were set in some city in the USA. Australia has a history of wowserism imposed by a few zealots on the many. The national psyche of Australians is embarrassment at anyone getting their knickers in a knot about anything, except for sport. And as for going to church on Sunday? Are you joking? This is why we get imposed religiosity, because we can't get off our bums enough to object, though we do object, as is shown by every poll. To American readers, the Christians won't seem odd; and this is largely because this type of zealot is an invasive species from the USA.

So with the different themes, including the zen of cycling, this novel is a symphony. The only notes that clanged were ones that often do in any story brave enough to inhabit the future. In a world where even the stock markets have collapsed, gourmet coffee and custom dérailleurs will be cherished memories. As will mobile phones and fashion, unless it's made of rags. But that's my opinion. In the past month I've read recent futures by leading writers that time-proof CNN (something that would have been seen as product placement if it were in film) and in some dump of an interstellar hotel, its owner worried about nuisance suits. So this quibble of mine about details of society that don't wash is a cheap shot that could be aimed at pretty much any speculative future, and not a complaint as much as an invitation to more of us to speculate.

I've given the novel 5 stars because the important themes it covers well are some of the most important issues that we are getting good at avoiding. Furthermore, I think that this novel should be awarded the Tiptree because it embodies everything the Tiptree Prize should stand for: an insistence against being shoved into any gender box. I also think that this novel should be awarded the inaugural Voiceless Writing Prize, not just because it speaks up for animals, but more importantly, because it shows how people who set out to stop others who not only break the law but are immoral (in ways that hurt the common good, not someone's hungry sense of outrage) can not only hurt their own cause by the strength of their passion, but be pounced on by the law for their actions, even as those who acted against the common good, continue in their well-connected ways.

Cover of a Psittacinoir Mystery

2011-12-14T14:31:00.003+10:30

Cardoons! - the story behind the story

2011-12-11T17:05:00.020+10:30

"Every Milkmaid you eat will bring you one step closer to a soft and smooth complexion."

Some say we won't have any secrets soon, and to that I say, Bahh Blabberbugs. But it would be churlish not to let on that my newest published story — Cardoons! — a horror tale of veg and WARNINGs (announced here the other day because I'm delighted that it's nestled in Issue #1 of Phantasmagorium, "A new quarterly collection of visceral adult fiction", edited by Laird Barron) — well, as I was roundaboutly saying, Cardoons! has some people without whom this tale wouldn't have been a sspht betwixt my synapses. This is one of my favourite stories, and that drooble above is an indulgence I couldn't help blurting out.

First, Cardoons! is dedicated to Vincent Michael Simbulan, for his brainchild A Time For Dragons, An Anthology of Philippine Draconic Fiction. Specifically, as I wrote in a previous post, "Included in the volume is a wonderfully informative (without pain) essay by Charles Tan, about the great variety of dragons and their relationships with us."

(Oh, there are also many others who inspired my horrors in this story, but their names shall live in unfamy.)

And then you should know about the art of Marc McBride.

Just some of the art of Marc McBride

I greatly admire his art (and although the public doesn't know it yet, his writing also has a unique charm that is completely captivating).

We've worked together before, on this, because we like collaborating. I asked him to lead with the illo, and I would follow with a story.

The Eye of Nostradamus Summit
Painting by Marc McBride
Story by Anna Tambour

We both see Cardoons! as a lavishly illustrated children's book. I wrote Cardoons! for Marc, thinking of his beautiful prismatic, sinuous paintings — and especially his palette, rife with colours butterflies would kidnap him to garb them with.

New story in Virtuous Medlar Circle, new Irresistibles, new Quotes

2011-12-11T16:04:00.013+10:30

Keep your tongue firmly in your cheek, lest it be taken for an ingredient on the loose.

"Turcotte took his knife out and started to evaluate the ingredients' ferocity and tactics."
– from the newest story in the Virtuous Medlar Circle,
"Turcotte's Battle" by Laura E. Goodin

Savour it, puzzle over a new portrait of a Magnificent Insignificant in the Season column, dance bonelessly as one model of abandonment does to the brazen brass and elastic beat of Bombay Royale — the first item listed in this month's Irresistibles. See a baby elephant birthed by Erth. Mix danger with childhood. Visit a dinosaur petting zoo. See the wonders of frogs & toads, fact & fiction. Be outwhiskered by the world's greatest nuzzles. And in Quotes, snicker with Dennis Danvers at art infectiousness; and just below that beauty, snigger at what us poor mugs paid for, as art (including 'performance art') as opposed to music, beauty, spectacle, consummate performances, and having a right good rave of a time.

All at the circus of unexpectednesses, the Other in my officialish aufor site.

Phantasmagorium #1 now out in print and digital editions

2011-12-10T16:06:00.006+10:30

Feeling dull, bloated and sleepy from all the sugar and spice and Manifest Merriness? Then what you need, and all your sick friends, is a dose of

Phantasmagorium edited by Laird Barron

Yes, folks, Issue #1 has today been released in a limited print edition.

But you can also get your fix from a number of digital editions.

Now, to the contents. Laird Barron, though he could scale any chimney, has never been accused of being a man who hands out candy canes. His taste, though, is both surprising and selectively broadminded. In his tantalising, slightly revealing introduction, he calls himself an "omnivore … with a special relish for all matters macabre."

It takes a Natural Disaster
I feel especially lucky that his taste stretched to "Cardoons!" in this collection of stories that fit perfectly together, as oddly as many 'natural couples' who would never have noticed each other if something didn't throw them together—not a dinner party. Such felicitous mixing is what all great editors do, so may this be only #1 of Phantasmagorium.

Phantasmagorium #1 - Table of Contents

Intro - Laird Barron

alligators - Scott Nicolay

Strong as a Rock - Simon Strantzas

Cardoons! - Anna Tambour

And this is where I go down into the darkness - Joseph Pulver

Bufonidae - Genevieve Valentine

No Takebacks - Stephen Graham Jones

Artwork - JD Busch

"I cannot tell a lie."

2011-12-10T11:00:00.005+10:30

"One letter, one life" - and no one is asking you to give

2011-12-07T16:47:00.009+10:30

The no-hassle to write, free-to-send cards that really do save lives
Billions of greetings are on the move already, the bulk of them resulting in a lukewarm feeling of 'that's nice' or 'they still want our business'.

Some cards, however, actually make such a difference that the piffling effort taken is astounding, compared to the result.

“I received your letter on Christmas Eve, just as I was having horrible thoughts of cutting this earth trip short. The correctional officer said ‘you got mail,’ and that snapped me back from the edge. As I read the paragraph, 'We received many messages from people who wanted to let you know that you are not forgotten,' my eyes got blurry, full of tears. So it was hard for me to see clearly. And now even as I write this letter there's a tear running down my cheek. I always thought nobody goes through what I go through...the holiday cards saved my life.”
- Alvin
Read his story and others at Just Detention International's
"The Holiday Cards Saved My Life"

I asked Lovisa Stannow, the Executive Director of JDI, for some quotes that I could post here. This is what she said:

Our card campaign presents a rare opportunity to do something that is completely free, takes only a minute, and has the potential to save the life of prisoners who have endured horrific sexual abuse while in the government’s custody. During last year’s holiday card campaign, I was in awe of the outpouring of kindness and compassion from hundreds of people who sent greetings. I was equally amazed by the responses from prisoner rape survivors who received the holiday cards. Some of them had never, ever received a card in the mail before. Most of them had no idea there were so many people out there who cared about them, who were fighting for their right to dignity.

As for the greetings folks submitted last year, here are some nice examples:

“I wish you hope, healing, and support. Please know there are people fighting for you, even if you have never seen us. Know there is love.”

“May you take comfort in knowing that countless people in the free world care deeply about you and will not stop fighting for justice.”

“From one survivor to another, I send you hope for peace of mind and heart. On both sides of the bars, we give one another strength to go on.”

And here’s one from today:

“Dear Friend, I guess this time of year may feel particularly hard. Please let me take a minute to say that I recognize that your humanity and your safety are worth fighting for regardless of your detention. I wish you hope and joy every day. Be well.”

So it's easy and free, and you can do it without worry about your privacy being completely respected. I asked Lovisa to elaborate.

"We never share anyone’s contact information with anyone, ever – prisoner or not. For this campaign, it’s absolutely enough to include a first name. Even if someone does include their full name and contact information, we’ll only include the first name in the holiday card (your message makes me think we should make that clearer on our website!). We are, of course, keen to get people’s full names and e-mail addresses so that we can stay in touch with those who participate in this effort and build JDI’s base of supporters."
— Lovisa Stannow

600 People
So wherever you are in the world, send a card or a few. In fact, it's kind of cool thinking of thousands of us—people from everywhere—sending these life-changing messages to folks in the USA. It's a small world, and we all benefit when someplace begins to clean up its act.

I have the highest respect for the reforms that JDI advocates, and for the people in this small efficient NGO. They are wholly committed to making the world a truly better place, where 'humane' has a meaning, not a cause for a wink and a joke.

In March 2011, JDI reported:

The [US] Department of Justice has released its first-ever estimate of how many people are sexually abused in U.S. detention in a one-year period. In 2008, the Department says, at least 216,600 people were abused in prisons and jails, and in 17,100 of these cases, in juvenile detention

Overall, that's almost 600 people a day.

Last year, the first year of JDI's Holiday Card campaign, 600 cards were sent. That's nothing compared to what we could do this year.

Send from their website, at:
Holiday Hope for Survivors

or
Just Detention International on Facebook

Two recommended collections

2011-12-06T16:32:00.022+10:30

First, a warning: Foul words ahead.
Those shit-spurting dissimulators at Amazon!

Amazon gives new meaning to "It is better to give than to receive".
Now, whenever someone 'gifts' a Kindle book to some unsuspecting person, the Act is an Impertinence. Receiving now, in my case, was like living in a society entirely designed by theorists on Asteroid *. Amazon needs to make sure that when it sends an email directing someone to click and receive, there is a non-graphic link that actually appears in the email, regardless of whether the email is set to accept graphics. And Amazon needs to look at their own Q & A, seeing how circular their nonhelp is. And Amazon needs to also understand that a recipient might not use the same email for Amazon as the gift comes in on. And also, duh, one platform needs to be able to have multiple accounts. In my case, I had to open the mail in the cloud, and eventually learn from some discussion group that to accept the gift that's in a name other than what you use with Amazon, you just log in with Amazon as normal, and put in the code, and you'll receive. If you want to then take that book and read it on your other pc, from my experience, if this was ever discussed in Amazon, the answer was "if our customers (or do they call us 'guests'?) want to do that, they can go fuck themselves."

That said, eventually I was able to download this new collection by Adam Browne, entitled Phantasmagoriana, though, grrr, cutting and pasting some quotes from it is something the Masters don't wish us to be capable of, damn their corporate obtusities!

But what about Phantasmagoriana?
This collection has as many tones as a battle between gamelans and bombards.

At first glance, it can seem like an exercise in impressionism, just for the showiness, but that's a false impression. There's a lot of depth here, especially philosophical, quite beautifully (unshowily!) expressed. The collection deserves another title, an original sit-up-and-notice handle equal to the original quirkiness of the stories.

I do have some favourites, of which "Biology …" is first in terms of the message, and "Bladderwrack …" in sheer, pitching-perfect fun, with the added tot of poignancy. (disclaimer: I have a small addiction to 17th and 18th century journals and tales, especially those with sea-legs.)

"A Retrospective" (a long story new to this collection) is a story that should be anthologised, and would fit well in a Strange Attractor publication. Full of cultural richness, this doesn't read as if it's another story of literary mining in exotic lands, but as if the writer hasn't dug this from a pile of media-shit or even a clean screen and shining writing qualifications. It does read as if at least part of the making of this story could have been a tropical boil.

"Heart of Saturday Night", taking place in modern Thailand is citygritty. "The Sun King" is exceedingly playful. But then there's the mischievous "Space Operetta" with its marvelously cheeky opening and its delicious second to last para. But then dammit, "An Account of an Experiment …" is a perfect blend of spot-on period drollery without the pain but with all the irreverent fun that one could see written in the original.

Browne (and the Browne/John Dixon collaboration in "The Laughing Girl of Bora ...") has an incredible ability to squeeze the gist out of a period of time, and place—even one that he makes up. Out of gist, he makes a story that is so smoothly enticing, it is a thrill to be transported, even to places that have so much reeking atmosphere that if there was a lull in the story, a reader could start sniffing the room for mildew or ... and there is so much ("its forces a confoundment", "the beggars drowning in their own karma") that without something to say, this would be another collection of impressionistic cloudskins.

There's a lot of heart in these stories, but nothing prescriptive. These are the stories of someone who has a life and has observed others, an author who has the confidence to stand back and let the stories tell—an author who has the humility to write about somethings other than himself. An author who has the maturity to try different voices and to collaborate at times with others (I first met a story by Adam Browne when I was backrooming editorwise, and so thoroughly enjoyed that "Laughing Girl" Browne/Dixon collab that I asked for private emails so that I could tell them personally). And then later, I stuck up my three or so thumbs pointing to its worthiness here.

And so I heartily like this collection, so much that I will now stick the boot in. Although this Kindle edition is beautifully set, there is something missing—that acknowledgments page that tells where, if anyplace, the stories were previously published. So here is that information (all the stories except one most excellent long story were previously published, but aren't easy to find).

Orlando’s Third Trance — HQ Magazine, December, 1999
(with John Dixon) Honeymoon — cOck – adventures in masculinity, edited by John Stevenson and Andrew Macrae, Cour de Lion Publishing, 2010
Biology of Paradise — Three-lobed Burning Eye, Issue 19, May 2010 (appearing there as "The Biologie of Paradise")
Blood Drunk — Allnighter: Fiction That Burns at Both Ends, Cardigan Press, 2006
Sun King — Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, 2006, and Best of ASIM, Fantasy, Vol 2
Heart of Saturday Night — Lenox Avenue ezine, 2005,
Bladderwrack — Agog Ripping Reads, edited by Cat Sparks, Wildside Press, 2006
Final Writings of Baron Sir Heinrich Proteus von Zuse — Aurealis #40 - April 2008
A Retrospective — appearing for the first time in this collection
Space Operetta — Aurealis #31, 2003
"An account of an experiment conducted by Fra Salimbene..." — ORB 7, 2008
(with John Dixon) "The Laughing Girl of Bora Fanong' a Tale of Colonial Venus" — Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Issue 46, 2010
End of Roentgen Rays — Talebones Magazine, 2003

I never expect every story in a collection or anthology to work for me, and only rarely find a collection in which every story does (both of Laird Barron's collections are magnificent exceptions), so I'll state here that three stories in Adam Browne's Phantasmagoriana would mess up the starcount if I were forced to plaster a book with them, as if this were some child's assignment.

Firstly, "Honeymoon" was fatally wounded by the drafting of a Southern General. The authors, who otherwise make a team as powerful as Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, should have fought about this hoary draftee. If they both agreed, then they should be sentenced to a pitcher each of warm syrupy mint julep, chugged on empty stomachs in infernal heat; and then a 20 click run through streets overflowing with more poverty-stricken cliches reaching out to them than Slumcur Zillionaire. Any story that has anyone, General or no, from the Deep South saying "Mah Nellie" should be treated with extreme prejudice, whether that General or- has, as he does in this case, tentacles, or not. It isn't that I am against anyone 'doing' the South, or that I don't think the way people express themselves is fascinating. There's been a sight too much presumptuousness about it, just as there is in, say, depicting any man who lives in Appalachian backwoods as a man itching to use his axe to skin you in your sleep. I object to trying to ride a dead horse. Let it rot! Actually, the American South is a fascinating place, with a plethora of styles of communication. And I speak with some knowledge, as someone who endured painful teasing in Alabama from fellow students and teachers alike, for saying theater with only two syllables. But anything that comes outa yur mouth is funny as hell to someone else. I've been the source of beer-spilling mirth for one word uttered in a bar in Maastricht, and words like water or phrases like dew on the grass can bring strong locals anywhere to tears. And that is just 'English'. Chinese people are too polite to laugh in your face when you ask for anything, but foreigners learn to act like children: show a note written by someone who knows.

Highly recommended
The best story I ever read not just about language, but the ways the subtleties place us and cause us to be more judgmental than God having one of his attacks of the vapours — is "Explanations Are Clear" by L. Timmel Duchamp, in Never at Home, her superbly vigorous collection (that hasn't garnered the following it should, possibly because of the timid cover).

Alice thought of how she called Corinne's parents Marian and Joe. Totally different worlds, yes. Not to mention her mother's dropping the esses on her plurals, and pronouncing her ths like ds or ts, which Alice, conscious of Corinne's foreign ear, noticed as she had almost never done in her life.

In fact, throughout this collection, the issues of language and expression run like blood in an artery. One short paragraph in the muscular but spare should-be-prize-winning "Sadness Ineffable, Desire Ineluctable":

Need to know? First religious nuances, and now the language of national security freaks?
Available in paperback and e-book

Never at Home is an outstanding collection of stories that explore the complexity of relationships in an unusual depth and iridescence. Often very beautiful, but never affected, I hope that this collection gets the prizes it deserves, and I hope that L. Timmel Duchamp is snapped up by another publisher of the highest quality fiction.

But were you itching to get back to the other two stories in Phantasmagoriana that didn't work for me?
The first one and the last—the first, because I think it was going along swimmingly till it briefly literary note-dropped, a wholly unnecessary celebrity appeal—to appeal to the college educated, who know the allusion from the notes (for the allusion is not to something loved, but studied, if ever) and then that dratted airship (not the only gratuitous dirigible in this collection, tut tut!).

And the last story, to me, was too influenced by Borges, who is a bad influence.

And that ends the ramble for today. Usually I proof and rewrite till my brain is reduced to a stub. Today, I'm too bushed. Abject insincere apologies for all my downright mistakes, and garblings.

P.S. Now a few days have passed, enough time that one of those unpleasant how did you miss these jolts just hit me. I wrote above: I never expect every story in a collection or anthology to work for me, and only rarely find a collection in which every story does (both of Laird Barron's collections are magnificent exceptions). But suddenly I want to add two others, both of which hold special places on my shelves. Across Paris, by Marcel Aymé, a collection that astounded me so much that I bought up every title I could by him (all at who-would-want-this-old-thing prices) only to be disappointed. The other consistently astounding and haunting collection, full of believably twisted relationships on all levels, and geographies that can't be GPS'd, is Dagger Key and Other Stories by Lucius Shepard (though the author of the Introduction reminds me of my allergy to plastic watches; every fresh exposure produces greater irritation).

The gourmet snail

2011-12-02T11:40:00.005+10:30

It is never wise to disturb a gourmet who's digging in, though listening to a snail eat is one of life's great and greatly under-celebrated pleasures. As to who is being spied upon, I don't have a clue, nor would I presume to try to find out.

"In order to recognise and describe new snail species, it is not enough to study their shells or what they do look like from the outside. Species of each genus do look very similar, esp. for laymen. The most characteristic feature - a kind of "species fingerprint" - of Australian land snails is the anatomy of their penial wall."
— Martin Pueschel, Australian Museum (see his gorgeous drawings of these sinuosities here)

"I'm not a species. I'm an individual!"
— anon., though often attributed to a man who walked into a bar on Xlugna, 2098

This is the polyporus woody pore-fungus that the snail has been trawling on a long lunch.

Go have your own good time viewing the weird and wondrous offerings of the Fungilicious group's art challenge:
"Woody pore-fungi & Bracket-fungi (Polyporus and allies) Must show the pores clearly!!!!

And now we'll slink off.

"An occasional meal with himself is very good for Mr. Doe. It gives him time to look about him; quiet in which to savour his present mouthful."
– M.F.K. Fisher, "On Dining Alone", from Serve It Forth

Quotefest - from Steve Aylett's Novahead

2011-12-01T16:16:00.003+10:30

First, read this new Aug Stone interview of Aylett in The Quietus. I never seem to have a Lint around to quote from because I keep getting them to give away, so I'll just say that Lint is canonic, and getting the accessories to Lint is part of the fun – see an excerpt from And Your Point is? in the Virtuous Medlar Circle.

Next, do you have your Novahead? Now in both paper and Kindle editions, Novahead should sear Aylett in the brains of those who give out comfits.

And there could be a prize given called the Aylett Award, for a work that can be savoured by random sentence. A sentence that means something, and some.

Random hits from Novahead

The air was criss-crossed with a density of laws that could strip the skin off a man's head for a moment's inattention.

Recoil is like hearing your own accent.

I'd known the town was finished when I put a phone to my ear and found it was a cockroach.

He had no goggles and I realised he detected the Mantarosa only by the hysterico-gravitational behaviour of the vehicles around us.

He shook himself and stood up in a big way. He certainly dominated a room. It would take a lot of work to kill him from beginning to end.

'A few days ago,' he said. 'I shot you point-blank with a Kingmaker.'
'I forgive you. But don't shoot anyone else. It makes them uncomfortable.'

By the time I realised with horror that life was no mere passing fancy, I'd grown attached to its compensatory malices.

A squabble of bats – In honour of 'Nora Munro's Belfry

2011-11-28T15:02:00.008+10:30

BLOSSOM TIME WITH FRUIT BATS

A corroboree of witches
squabbles in the trees;
they'd knee each other
but they don't
have knees.

They're not polite and
they never say please.
Their eyes are limpid
but their tactics —
sleaze.

Never trust a fruit bat when
there's something sweet to eat.
If your toes are lickable
she'll leave you
sans feet.

Her loveliness is stunning
her fur a soft delight -
but when the blossoms
blossom, she only speaks
to fight.

Like a beauty on a sale day
just DON'T get in her way.
Between her and her
desire, there's only room to
—hey——Ć?ſψҖ!!!

This line of Nora's is hanging here, begging to be limericked.

"Acrylic yarn squeaks when you knit it"

So please do (knit it into a limerick, that is)

or, taking the line as is or mincing if you please (and though some might eeew it, you'll earn kudos for adding suet), commit your very own bob and wheel, rhupunt, or sneadhbhairdne;
or Carrollify, Seussate, or Yeats it to your taste.

You can even season with pepper spray.

Whatever, but serve it forth, forthwith!

Poems Poems Poems!

from and to a writer who gets form-letter rejections

2011-11-27T11:29:00.007+10:30

"You want me to go in there? Why don't you sniff, for a change?"

The biggest problem many 'new writers' have is assaying — which piece of invaluable advice is treasure, and which, something better left for experts: a bomb squad or a team in biohazard suits. The following is from a nw who has written some wonderfully crisp and tangy stories, but. My answer follows, but since your advice might be the opposite, perhaps you'd like to toss your advice in for nw's to pick up.

"Most of my rejections are the generic kind with no story-specific comments, so I'm always left scratching my head wondering what the turn off was.

I think every writer has to get the hack stories out of their system.
You know--the God vs. Devil story, the time travel story, the AI story, the robot story, the nanobot story, the dragon, vampire, zombie and werewolf stories ... I have a few stories left that I know are going to be panned (the help line story, the talking sword story) but maybe if I work a little harder to find the offbeat part of each one, they might be salvageable. If not, there's always the bottom drawer. No story is ever dead."

My answer to your hack-story line is, whall, no. There is no reason to be for a hack story that exists because it is derivative, in my opinion. Being a writer isn't like being a potter, which must build on imitation, and for many successful potters, never progresses from there. Writing that is rewarding is the communication of something. It may play with recognisable elements, but that is beside the point. A story worth stealing a reader's time and brain is itself something that has its own life, its own taxonomic category, and one that is worth fierce fights over as to which species the damn thing is—a fight that is ultimately, unresolvable unless it is awarded its own kingdom.

Anyway, that's my opinion. I think that by looking at stories as you are, you are wasting your own capacities and ignoring what has made you what you are today: a thinking person who is highly reflective, but who isn't trusting your own take on the world to be more valid than those who suck their 'works' from the canned goods of others.

What do YOU think?

"Against prevailing dogmas"
Of course, all writers and indeed, all people creating something, even new theories about disease, must learn to constantly assess and assay, as some recent Nobel laureates have learned.

The worst advice can come from the very sources we are supposed to trust the most. Many writers have fretted over their feet not fitting into the footwear of the moment, but shoved them in anyway, just because of a shallow faddish youshouldwrite delivered irresponsibly by a someone in the trade, a someone who's not there when you're ready to dance in those stupid glitsy shoes.

There are sites that bristle with famous rejection notes, but think what would have happened to this soul if he had listened when he should have in those tender formative years, well before he was even a grub of a nw.

"He has the most distorted ideas about wit and humour."
- Arthur Herman Gilkes, headmaster, Dulwich [seriously],
writing to the parents of P. G. Wodehouse

Finds from the Proscriptozoic Era

Bottom drawer -
Blockbuster drafts

Actual form letter -
on recreated desk of the time
(translation: "We're sorry to say that this manuscript is not right for us,
in spite of its evident merit.")

Fairy penguin observations

2011-11-20T16:22:00.006+10:30

This Eudyptula minor commonly known as a Fairy Penguin (but authorities today prefer, if we insist on being common, "Little Blue Penguin") was on the beach south of Ulladulla early this morning, rigor mortis not quite set in. I couldn't find any injury, so won't speculate on why it died.

Its oily feathers smelt remarkably unfishy—and even more surprisingly, as if it had bathed with Sunlight soap. Why a penguin would smell like a sheep beats me, and the comparison makes me cringe to have stated it, so if anyone can shed light on the composition of its fats, I would appreciate learning.

Tips for ending writer's block

2011-11-16T16:43:00.009+10:30

It's the season again! Aye, November, and this year the feral NaNoWriMos have spread to everywhere in Australia. So that they don't invade my tree, I've come out of it to give some advice that always works for me.

Think of limericks with amplexus.

Observation is so rewarding.

Hooked by Mountain Devils & Gramps' chinlocks

2011-11-14T14:36:00.005+10:30

Nothing to sniff at:

Mountain devil - Lambertia formosa

overhung by, of Caustis flexuosa, a seedy Grandfather's Beard

"Picking Blueberries" now an infinity plus single

2011-11-13T16:50:00.006+10:30

New ebook singles from infinity plus:

The Life Business — John Grant
The Bone Flute — Lisa Tuttle
The Death of Cassandra Quebec — Eric Brown
Playmate — Kit Reed
Picking Blueberries — Anna Tambour

("Picking Blueberries" is one of the stories in my collection, Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales &, reissued by infinity plus earlier this year in a new expanded edition.)

Oh hah hah! Irresistible "Tales from the Secret Shop" by Marc Laidlaw and Jim Murray

2011-11-02T12:41:00.008+10:30

His face! and what curls from his bag! and shllp indeed!

This is everything that a comic should be, and I'd love to plaster the pages in this blog as well as all over my wall. Besides, I'm a sucker for shopkeeper stories, as well as beasts of overburden.

Written by the inimitable Marc Laidlaw. Painted to perfexselection by Jim Murray.

Tales from the Secret Shop
a new serial comic beginning today with
"Are We Heroes Yet?"

Warning: If you die laughing, that's your problem.

Adventures with your tongue in the bush

2011-10-28T16:15:00.005+10:30

Flowers flowers everywhere, to drink from and to eat.

Will you have hollandaise with that?

This Lomandra longifolia has a quiet sense of humour. Both its flowers and the base of its strappy leaves are said to be good tasting. They should be. It is a member of the family Asparagaceae.

Bottlebrushes are tongue-friendly. Some birds such as the Honeyeaters and Rainbow Lorikeets have specially adapted tongues—variations of brush-tips—the soaks.

Melaleuca hypericifolia

Listed as "Red-flowered paperbark" and "commonly known as Hillock Bush", say many quoted sources. Balderdash! Almost every Australian who sees these calls them bottlebrushes, though bottlebrushes belong, maybe, to another genus sent to try us. Botanists are studying them to decide how to best argue classification. In the meantime, Red Bottlebrush describes quite a few native plants that are currently foudroyant.

Utterly delicious — the rain-nectar cocktail, sucked straight from the flowers.

Feral leprechauns! Read and see "Undine Love" by Kathleen Jennings

2011-10-27T17:00:00.007+10:30

Great minds, some might say. Minds, shminds. It's a case of observation.

When Kathleen Jennings and I both wrote about those feral migrants—leprechauns in the paddock—neither knew the other had been spying on them too. We didn't look from the same point of view (or maybe the sun was in her eyes) for as she writes:

"Our two stories touch on almost exactly the same theme in similar settings from opposite standpoints – in some cases, down to sentences which directly contradict the other story."

Nobody's perfect
Get your eyes to "Undine Love", a story not only written by her, but illustrated by her too. As I've said before, her art is a joy even if she's overendowed with talent. She paints with words as fluently as she tells stories with her paintings. So, so what if she contradicts the only correct standpoint? So does every mapmaker brainwashed by the blood-in-the-headedness of those upside-down Northern Hemisphereans.

"Undine Love" appears in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (ASIM) issue #52, just "released from captivity". I've only mentioned one story but the whole issue is a mesmeriser.

Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine Issue 52 edited by David Kernot. Authors: Sean Monaghan, Dominik J Parisien, Nicky Drayden, Kathleen Jennings, Brenda Anderson, Felicity Pulman, Liz Colter, Ray Tabler, Melanie Typaldos, Linda Jenner, Rachel Kolar, GR McLeod, LK Pinaire, Margaret Karmazin, Pam L Wallace, David Conyers and John Goodrich, Peter Cooper, Natalie Nikolovski, and Ken Liu. Poetry: Alexandra Seidel , Jack Horne. Features: Jacob Edwards. Artwork: David Conyers, Kathleen Jennings, and cover by Olivia Kernot.

Trap yours here (available in many formats, including instant-gratification)

Kelp

2011-10-26T17:28:00.003+10:30

Not only delicious picked straight from the beach, but in my opinion, a great model. If I were a science-fiction magazine designer, this would be a cover shot.

Recommended standalone short story ebooks

2011-10-23T18:21:00.006+10:30

"This month, infinity plus launches the singles series, cheap short stories you can read in a single sitting at lunch or in the evening, an opportunity for readers to discover unfamiliar authors, and maybe a chance to breathe life back into the short fiction market."
– "Infinity Plus Singles: a new line of standalone short story ebooks"

The first five releases:
#1 One Step Closer – Iain Rowan
#2 Has Anyone Here Seen Kristie? – John Grant
#3 The Time-Lapsed Man – Eric Brown
#4 Head Shots – Keith Brooke
#5 Old Soldiers – Kit Reed

Full details and purchasing links at infinity plus singles

And my not-so-secret favourite,
Blaft Publications, is at it, too, with "an e chapbook, a very short ebook"
Eating Sugar, Telling Lies by Kuzhali Manickavel, a writer of great power, wickedly accurate satire, and no patience with long-windedness.

Confessions of a dead-tree addict, an addict to smell, touch, and the beauty of text on a page
I do admit that I thought "Who will want to buy a single story to read as an ebook?" But then I also thought, "Who would want to read a novel as an ebook?" Possibly I would have thought once, "Why would anyone want to convert a picture to thousands of symbols that people have to learn to decode to understand?"

I hate reading fiction I can't drop crumbs into, rip a hangnail in tension over, and bleed onto.
I hate the current level of aesthetics in typography.
But they are cheap.
And they're gloriously self-indulgently instantly accessible.
Horrors, but hooray.

As for me, I still don't have an e-reader. They don't work here in the bush. But even if they did, these now are primitive. I'm hanging out for the e-book with illuminated dingbats.

Portrait of Clover

2011-10-21T11:03:00.000+10:30

Detail of a scene on moss

2011-09-23T16:44:00.011+09:30

Is one passport too much to ask for?

2011-09-22T15:58:00.008+09:30

M. isn't anyone noble. He's a sweet, weak sort of guy trying to make a decent life for his family. He would like to live where he grew up, in the land of his father and mother and forefathers and foremothers. But ten years ago, he asked me if I could help him move here, or to some other country where I have friends: Turkey, say; or the USA–somewhere that his children wouldn't have nightmares of being shot, somewhere with a chance for his family to live in dignity and his children could dream of a different future—somewhere that, when you look up in the sky, you only expect to see stars, not starbursts. He told me that he felt guilty wanting to escape, but he didn't see any other way.

I tried hard to help him, but couldn't. Legally, his kind isn't wanted anywhere.

"I'll do anything," he said. "Wash dishes for the rest of my life, dig holes. Work every day. I don't care what I'm paid. Can't you sneak me in?"

Righto, an illegal immigrant who's a Palestinian. If he got caught, he could look forward to quite a future.

We're still friends though I as a Jew, am encouraged by Israel to live in his land, while he is expected to grasp the short end of history. He once told me that he felt that he was a victim of antisemitism.

As Gideon Levy has just said: "The Palestinians are The New Jews . . . The great powers supported partition at the time, the great power is now opposed to a state. But the moral validity remains the same, there is no longer anyone in the world who can seriously claim that they don't deserve what we deserved, without being a racist, a chauvinist or a cynical opportunist."

M. also said that he found it odd that he as a Palestinian, has no passport, while many of the Israeli "settlers" have two.

We still "hope" together, but to be asked to be "patient" now, in a speech that never even mentioned the euphemism "settlements", is to be ~~asked~~ told to, well, Steve Clemons put it best in his column in The Atlantic: Obama Tells Palestinians to Stay in the Back of the Bus

Also recommended:

Robert Fisk: A President who is helpless in the face of Middle East reality

"I couldn't believe what I heard. It sounded as though the Palestinians were the ones occupying Israel. There wasn't one word of empathy for the Palestinians. He spoke only of the Israelis' troubles."
—Hanan Ashrawi, quoted in Haaretz

Israel's Anti-democratic enterprise

Israel's anti-democratic impulses grow

Lime pickle, dried squid, vegemite, halvah, dates in space

2011-09-19T09:21:00.005+09:30

Further to my questions to you the other day, more queries.

From Star Wars to Avatar, to the freshly published Robert Reed novella "The Ants of Flanders" in Fantasy & Science Fiction, the food we eat in space seems to have been designed by McDonald's and British Airways. There's an assumption that it's all hard going, and as textureless as the foamed lobster 'molecular gastronomy' joke pawned off on today's luxury-weighted diners with more money than sense.

But what if these assumptions of bland untasty spacefood are wrong? What if people in space are going to be very different to the assumed? What if they have, for instance, taste? And what if they did not necessarily grow up sucking on Mac's teats and the products of companies that put the ic in artificial?

What do you think people off-earth will eat? What would you propose that they should be offered?

Lime Pickle - the perfect space food?

Reduces nausea
Digestive
Adds taste to everything
Can be eaten alone
Sugar free
Indestructible
Gets better with age

What would you pack?

Animalians, Vegetalians, Minerinvasivans - Non-humans who people fiction & other arts

2011-09-17T16:06:00.014+09:30

At next week's Conflux conference that I mentioned (so I could pick your brain about a banquet for overspace guests—and your advice, menus, and reading recommendations) here, there is yet another panel that I'd like to get your input on, whether you are human or not.

Animalians, Vegetalians, Minerinvasivans—Non-humans who people fiction & other arts
A discriminatory exploration of non-humans in fiction (humanoids will be shunned, even if they threaten to bite and are called 'The Doctor'). Many non-humans have been the good bones, uh, flesh and, uh – living substance – of a great story. Who are they? And in our age when few humans interact with other species willingly, are real non-humans (with complex personalities) endangered? Panelists: Marilyn Pride and Anna Tambour. Participation from the floor will not only be encouraged, but if everyone sits like inanimate objects, they should expect to be stimulated by the odd non-human animal and tendril.

What do you think? What would you recommend?

Starting the discussion with a list of 5 great stories—creepy, haunting, fun, outrageous, and all published recently —

Explanations are Clear by L. Timmel Duchamp (in Never at Home)

Fjaerland by Rudy Rucker and Paul Di Filippo (in Flurb #12)

The Bird, the Bees, and Thylacine by Thoraiya Dyer in the Andromeda Spaceways #51)

Leng by Marc Laidlaw (in Lovecraft Unbound)

Fossil by Angelo R. Lacuesta (in A Time for Dragons)

Get your free Infinities sampler now

2011-09-16T15:15:00.004+09:30

100,000 words

$0.00

A banquet for overspace guests

2011-09-16T10:44:00.018+09:30

Haven't we met somewhere before?

Planning a Science Fiction theme dinner? There are a whole range of consumables (and drinkables) described throughout SF literature and media. Some of it could be delicious, some revolting, and some of it can eat you! And, master-chefs to the Universe, what would you serve at a banquet for non-earthlings?

That's what Laura E. Goodin, Marilyn Pride, Lewis Morley, Valerie Toh and I, along with everyone who pitches up, will be considering next week at a panel at Conflux.

So this post is to pick your brains.

What would you like to see served at a SF-theme dinner?
&
At a banquet with guests who are possibly almost as vicious as starring food judges, what would you risk?

Menu, etiquette, and survival considerations in planning a banquet for non-earthlings ~ some fussingalready notes

Mouth parts ~ sucking, chewing, other
Tastes ~ We can't assume that guests will have sensory organs for sweet, sour, salt, bitter, umami. So other possible tastes: electric, ozone, colour, assorted waves, other
Allergies ~ Assuming that peanuts are out (the starving can't be choosers, but we'll assume our guests are not intergalactic refugees) what else should be excluded?
Social considerations ~ What taboos should we plan for?
Catering for immatures ~ Separate facilities and a Children's Menu (pussgetti, half-pints, slurpées, etc.) will be necessary for all nymphs, eggs, and others who might metamorphose during the banquet, keeping in mind that larvae who don't eat once they reach adulthood will be particularly hungry.
Social expectations ~ Can this be called a banquet if guests expect to be served high-grade fissionable material, yet we only serve champagne?
Hostpitality ~ It's only right that hosts try to cater for their guests' every need, though the saying "You should be willing to lay down your life for a guest" was spread by mosquitoes. So if a guest turns to you and says, "Will you be my amuse-bouche?" it is perfectly advisable to reply "I'm sorry. I speak no Astmarsian."
What to say to "What's in this?" ~ Remember that only humans accept "You don't wanna know."
These are only starters ~ So what do you think vital, so as to be a good host who lives to enjoy another dinner?
So come one, come all.

Please post your thoughts, advice, and menus!
because online,
you can't be skewered

Anyone with experience is automatically a Master.

Possibly The Last Supper detail

Because the sun has no thumbs to spin straw . . .

2011-09-08T12:37:00.008+09:30

Steps in making a gold-leaf gold reef, shown backwards:

The workshop:

of the Vegan Alchemist

"The Oyster and Alice O." just released in the wild Flurb #12

2011-09-07T15:59:00.010+09:30

Dive into the latest issue of FLURB, a Webzine of Astonishing Tales edited and illustrated (in paintings and photographs) by Rudy Rucker.

Authors in this (Fifth Anniversary)
Issue #12, "Fall–Winter 2011"
(I'm not telling you the names of the stories, so that you can enjoy discovering.)

Brendan Byrne
Adam Callaway
Will Ellwood
Eileen Gunn
Martin Hayes
Ernest Hogan
Justin Patrick Moore
Rudy Rucker and Paul Di Filippo
A. S. Salinas
Emily C. Skaftun
John Shirley
Bruce Sterling
Anna Tambour
Don Webb

I'm utterly delighted that my story—"The Oyster and Alice O."— accompanied by a perfect storm of photographs by Rudy Rucker, nestles amongst this unruly mob.

You might know Rudy Rucker as a polymath whose latest novel, the "weirdest, craziest, colorfulest book yet?" is Jim and the Flims.

But with Rucker, there's always more. He's too busy writing, teaching, exploring, artisting, and living to keep everyone informed of his daily production, so, amongst the just-outs and comings, a few snippets:

Nested Scrolls - a Writer's Life has recently been released by PS Publishing.
Better Worlds is a new edition of his artbook, with commentary.
See more about all sorts of his projects here.

He hasn't said, and I don't know how many others have mentioned, that he's also a handful of raisins if you happen to be a vat of water and rye. I loved feeling my brain brew, though the froth was messy. He's a great editor.

3 personal favourite stories in this issue are:
"Xuanito", with its sly humour and my favourite photo of this issue.
&
"Fjaerland"—Having had an eel make its way into one of my own stories, and a Norwegian troll into another, how could I resist this?
&
"After the thaw"—I'm a slave to any story with the line "That sounds unpleasantly task-oriented".

Which way?

2011-09-06T12:57:00.004+09:30

Kennedia rubicunda (Dusky coral pea)

This little beauty, celebrating spring, belongs to the genus Kennedia. My calling it rubicunda could be a familiarity too far.

Though I am always charmed by this colourful clinging climber, I am genuinely sorry that no Kennedia prostrata lives here.

With very similar flowers, its common name is Running Postman. So:

Is the postman running to or from?

The value of private friendships

2011-09-05T16:00:00.006+09:30

"… not being on Facebook had made me feel as if I lived under a rock … I received e-mails from two friends announcing the births of their babies, and I hadn’t known either woman was pregnant, even though I was a bridesmaid in one of their weddings. (One e-mail began, “For those of you who we are not in touch with by cellphone, or Facebook. ...”) Last August, my friend Jesse told me that not being on Facebook was just plain rude."
- Curtis Sittenfeld, I'm on Facebook. It's over, New York Times, 3 Sept 2011

There is a difference between a letter and a newsletter, just as there is a difference between one person saying "I love you" to another person, or to a crowd. A communication to a list is a newsletter.

In the rush to find out trivial things about people we haven't cared enough about to want to keep in touch with, we are losing the most important parts of ourselves. The imposed extrovert personality of 'friendship' that is the dominant culture negates the value of real friendships, intimate secrets and inspirations between people who actually care about each other. This EZ way to socialise in bulk takes the pain away from actual communication, the letter that really matters, the one-to-one conversation without the thought by either that any part of that communication needs to be labelled 'off the record'.

I owe, I always owe, letters to people that I have been slow to write to. Some of the most important, I will probably write after I do those other things I never get around to because they are too hard. In the end, I will fail. But at least I know that. To make life easier by commoditising the personal relationship only cheapens life.

When we can speak from the heart and not some online 'personality', we can not only be more honest but more generous and hopefully, naked compared to wearing that online clothing: the self-defensive garb woven of finely felted bullshit. In personal communication, we can be who we really are, in all its quirks and many conflicting variations of 'who'. It's hard, old-fashioned, finicky work—communicating—but I would value it higher even than the time needed to put into making a decent cup of coffee, or getting into the next networking loop. Real hard friendship might even be more worthwhile working at than body sculpting.

Real friendships if they are worth it, are also worth caring enough about, to take the care to be personal and private about them. And as for those 'Friends' lists, anyone truly interesting has a mix of true friendships that is worth privacy, too.

Waratahs are blooming this year

2011-09-04T10:48:00.003+09:30

Telopea
If I were to name it, I'd call it the salamander flower.

Sweet sour salt bittern

2011-09-04T09:48:00.004+09:30

Never hunt your banqueting dish,
as you could cause it to faint, if not expire.

One of the curses of being a fictionist is that life keeps imitating your stories, and you want to say, "See here! It's not right to keep reporting things that have to do with my story, and all the while keeping the public in the dark about the story itself." (said to oneself with many !!!s)

So I'll announce right now that Gunkl Fleer would have made sure that no food source would ever need to be "making a new comeback from extinction" even if that claim were capable of truth. As for Gunkl Fleer, his existence won't be known to the masses of bitterns and other readers till Phantasmagorium (announced yesterday) makes its appearance.

In the meantime, enjoy the Telegraph's article, full of wreckless fancies:
Bittern: medieval banqueting dish that died due to hunting and loss of habitat

Laird Barron edits new journal: Phantasmagorium

2011-09-03T16:05:00.005+09:30

Phantasmagorium is coming soon. "A new quarterly collection of visceral adult fiction", edited by Laird Barron, who has no equal in the offhand remark that makes a reader's guts freeze. He is heartlessly cavalier in causing people to mistrust wakefulness as well as sleep.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to tell about the other folks involved in Phantasmagorium, so I'll just say that I expect a knife-along-the-back thrill of a publication, with the highest standards of writing, art, and even treating authors better than cobs of corn in a syrup plant.

The authors for the first issue have just been revealed.
Joseph S. Pulver is not only one of them, but an author you should sink your eyeballs into, so see his announcement where he reveals all the authors:

Myths of separation of Church and state

2011-09-02T14:42:00.012+09:30

Remembered especially for her dedication to spreading the Gospel to children in state schools.
– Obituary/Tribute to Sister Shirley Rsj Fagan, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August

"The west's separation of Church and state is something to cherish."
— Elizabeth Farrelly, Keeping quiet allows intolerance to thrive, Sydney Morning Herald, Sept 1

Despite cuts in other areas, the Federal Government has announced a $222 million increase in funding for the controversial National School Chaplaincy Programme... Most school chaplains in government schools are employed through a state provider of chaplaincy services. Nearly all providers are Christian organisations.
– Kelly Hockley, Students need school counsellors, not disciple makers, Independent Australia

"In recent times peaceful, let alone fruitful, coexistence between Christian societies and Islamic groups has again become more difficult. The causes are many ... have accentuated the tensions always inherent between a West in which the separation of church and state has become routine, and an Islam that has, often and for long, seen the two as indissolubly linked."
— Harry Gelber, Immigration, the Nation and Multiculturalism, Quadrant Magazine, July-Aug 2011

Religious instruction teachers are forbidden to advocate or proselytise (try to convert pupils) for Christianity or any other religion.
— Religious education in public schools, Colleen Ricci, The Age, 2 May 2011

"in Australia we have a God-given open door to children and young people with the Gospel, our federal and state governments allow us to take the Christian faith into our schools and share it. We need to go and make disciples."
— School chaplains: Time to look at the evidence, Inside Story, 13 May 2011

The jazz singer who isn't keeping quiet
"This is a man [Ron Williams] who's gone to the High Court to get the justice that he believes is due to him - that is the separation of church and state." — Ron Williams is fighting the National School Chaplaincy Program in the High Court, claiming it is unconstitutional.
— Campaign against chaplaincy program reaches the High Court, 7:30 Report,Tracy Bowden, reporter, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 10 Aug 2011

So why in heaven's name is an ordained minister not a fan of kids learning about right and wrong? Because they provide a secular alternative to "special religious education".
—Dominic Knight, Here endeth the ethics lessons?, ABC's The Drum Opinion

And now, children, we'll learn all about …

The best morality teachers are dyslexic.

Death talks

2011-09-01T18:26:00.001+09:30

Blue Steel Special

2011-09-01T17:58:00.004+09:30

I recommended Iain Rowan's Nowhere to Go back in May, if you like your crime stories memorable both for the way they're told and the characters. If you haven't bought this collection yet, now's the time. Throughout September, Nowhere To Go is down from the usual price of $2.99 to just 99c/86p at Amazon.

And those author interviews he's running have really added up. See them here.

Fortunes and Charles Tan

2011-08-16T11:13:00.004+09:30

Ever since I first read "The Fortunes of Mrs. Wu" in The Dragon and the Stars, I've pestered its author not only for permission to include the story in the Virtuous Medlar Circle, but for the author to write more stories that star Mrs. Wu.

I'm delighted to have succeeded with my first pester, but have so far failed to move the author to fulfill my second wish, so I'm upping my pestilence protocol to include unbearable torture, but in the meantime, I invite you to enjoy:

"The Fortunes of Mrs. Wu" by Charles Tan

Moving authors and activists
I'm late in noticing the existence of the new World SF Travel Fund, set up to enable one international person involved in science fiction, fantasy or horror to travel to a major genre event. The people on the board of The Fund are Lauren Beukes, Aliette de Bodard, Ekaterina Sedia, Cheryl Morgan and Lavie Tidhar. This is an inspired project, as everyone will benefit.

The Fund has just chosen Charles as the first recipient—a brilliant choice.
Read about The Fund, and Charles Tan here, where you can also contribute.

Beware of kings with sunken eyes . . .

2011-07-31T17:55:00.006+09:30

In the anthropocentric world of classed delusion
glass thinking it is made of fish is in exclusion.

Sink Corporate Pirates: A new blog that needs whistling about

2011-07-27T16:32:00.007+09:30

Sink Corporate Pirates

Qs and facts about the "library/corpirate complex", Amazon as a fence, copyright as it is flogged, fraud on the high seas of "publishing", and a wealth of other jollies.

The blog is run by someone with a sophomoric nom de grrr probably because of the Pirates of Penzance refrain, brought up to date:

When constabulary duty's to be done, to be done,
A ~~policeman's~~ whistleblower's lot is not a happy one (happy one).

New interview, and a recipe

2011-07-22T10:37:00.007+09:30

Eat Me

Iain Rowan posed good questions, and has been a great pesterer to actually answer them. The interview with me is only one of his series, "Writers talk about writing".

Tambourian Bread

Heat the oven to bloody hell (220 C or about 420 F)
Toss in flour-strewn baking sheet.

In a big bowl, throw

3 (metric *) cups unbleached flour
2 cups rolled oats

Rub the oats till they're broken up somewhat, and add

1 and a half (metric) teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda

Mix.
Add

1 mix of half to one cup yogurt (or sour cream or kefir or sour milk or buttermilk or milk soured with a teaspoon or two of lemon juice)
and water, to equal a total of 2 cups liquid (the bread above is 1 cup thick tart homemade yogurt to 1 cup water)
3 tablespoons olive oil

Shake liquid in a jar. Dump into dry ingredients and mix all fast with a wooden spoon and with maximum cheap satire(cuttingly). Turn out onto table. The mixture will be rough, and might need some more liquid, or maybe some more flour. Bully quickly into brick (on its side) and cut the top three times.

Toss, literally, onto hot baking sheet in oven.
Reduce temperature to medium heat (170 C or about 350 F)
Bake 60 minutes.
Cool on rack, and cover and store in tea towel or any old thing that will breathe (anything woven, that is)

This bread smells wonderful, has a toothsome crust, and a dense internal texture like fresh Irish soda bread. But unlike Isd, it keeps excellently. Fabulous toasted. Walnuts and dates have begged to be included in it. Blackcurrant jam has declared fealty. Cheeses, however, have fought to sit upon its hunks.

* Non-metric measurers can be used, as this is all to-taste anyway, and flour measured by volume can mean anything, as does the amount of liquid added. Today, for instance, some big-eyed goddess is crying melodramatically somewhere Above, and even the talcum powder is getting sympathetic.

Marzipan fruit and the Mistresses of Fancies

2011-07-06T16:41:00.014+09:30

Anyone can make good marzipan or marchpane—given almonds, sugar (& according to Elinor Fettiplace "you must have gum dragon [tragacanth *] steep it in rose water all night" which might be easy but if not, eat your lips before succumbing to the repulsive charms of any "good basic recipe" that includes corn syrup and/or marshmallow cream), edible tints, paintbrushes, pounding, mixing juuust right, skill, artistry and time.

You too can make beautiful and realistic fruits, leaves—all the "conceits" and "fancies" you care to, even unto gnus. The most poorly developed beast will at least delight the palate if not the eye. I've never had the skill to do as good a job as these pictured beauties, though once I did make a batch of hairy marzipan noses and a pretty realistic whiskered sewer rat.

Fake fruits like these are so common round these parts now, that they rain down in a wind.

In addition to being made by the finest fake-fruit makers on earth, the Guild whose members made these were the first cooks to employ labour-saving devices. To make what is to them, the mere nursery food above, their technique is: turn your back on it, inject and forget.

These were made by members of that Guild of Mistress Chefs, called rather humanly,"wasps".

The gall of them
As with all food experts, in numbers, they can be pests. The Ophelimus sisters are the most infamous. Biological controls have been introduced to defeat them, an idea that should bear fruit elsewhere.

* Gum tragacanth (from Essence of Guinevere Tragacanth) is now known only as the dried sap from some mangy trees that grow in places very fashionable to write about. In purchased form, it looks like grains of sleepy. When combined with water, tragacanth is a gluey substance akin to rubber cement or nightmare gravy. The original Essence of Guinevere Tragacanth was made from reducing her stock, once she had been spiced with grains of paradise and boiled till her bones ran. Thus the archaic meaning of tragacanth as "tragically impossible to pronounce to everyone's agreement", for she was sacrificed (with a chicken) as a final fitting end to the War of Guin's Eye or Ear, Let Alone G or J, C or K, which broke out when she was to wed her cousin, Geoff Tragacanth, who, along with anyone named Baodab, was eaten after five years of bloody fighting between violent pronunciationists, by a dragon who was never caught, but was honoured in absentia. For further information, see accounts by the Veritable Bode.

Barbara who? A great cartoonist

2011-07-02T16:22:00.007+09:30

Looking at New Yorker cartoons of 1929–1930s, I ended up noting one cartoonist's name time and again, and finally looking it up—only to find that Wikipedia thinks it's a misspelling.

Michael Maslin has tried to correct history's fame imbalance with his Revisiting Barbara Shermund.

Not only do the cartoons still work, but they are as timeless as human affectations are. The style of the artwork is part of what makes each piece work so well, but I can't post them here. Instead, here are two captions:

"He has the most marvelous vocabulary—I don't know whether he'll use it all this evening or not"
(1/4/30) This one made me not just smile but laugh, having just finished reading a marvelous but collection by Will Self.

Another (12/14/29): "Oh, of course I don't really smoke—just puff."

"Since when have decent publishers had to advertise for authors?"

2011-07-02T11:41:00.003+09:30

A few days ago there was either an hilarious, a hilarious, or a hillarius (depending upon your publisher) exchange between Keith Brooke and a business that calls itself a publisher.
Read it here: Fair deal for authors? You judge

Inspired
This is the latest blurb from the business:

"An autobiographical story of a modern day Warlock, living in Londons East End.Poetic stories of his adventures, are tied together with retrospectives on their conception, so join the Wiccan way of witchcraft and discover his path." (sic)

Parrot Confidence Course

2011-06-18T14:05:00.008+09:30

Cowering kings
The parrots hereabouts are flighty, these winter days, as a lobster at the sight of a restaurant. With that wedge-tailed eagle cruising silently, the parrots have due cause. Not a single king parrot here might say, "Alas, poor Yorick" at the sight of a clump of feathers or a flightless feathered wing, but they sure know the meaning of mortality.

So it is with heavy heart that I heard of a certain parrot by the name of L______ who lives unencumbered by the threat of raptors, only to be terrorised by one of his own kind. Or maybe that is a feint for a shyness without excuse: either a morbidity of the soul or an existentialism much too heavy for anyone who weighs less than a supermarket magazine.

I was delighted therefore, to receive in the mail, an offer from a fantastic new multimedia club called "Featherpress Editions".

This wise concern must have been reading my mind because the offer was addressed to L______, saying

"If you are not L______, and are reading this offer by accident, then avert your eyes. It is not for you. It is only for L______ (and all other parrots L______ invites in, to participate in this special offer):

Walk Proud, Talk Loud: 7 Days to Confidence

This book can be yours soon if you ACT NOW. Several parrots have been transformed by the tips in this indispensable guide, written by the author of such classics as
SOFTIES AT HEART: THE SENSUALITIES OF BULLS
SIT: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CANINE NANNY
PARROT CHATS
THE UPPER STOREY: HOW TO RENOVATE INSULATION
&
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS: A CORN SNAKE'S REMINISCENCES OF LIFE ON A FARM

5 Excerpts from 7 DAYS TO CONFIDENCE:
from Chapter 3: "Stopping bad habits"
Shifty eye
Teach your human to look you in the eye, explaining patiently how eagles never do. The sooner your human realises that you are not a cat, the easier it will be for all. Tell them that you size up a personality by engaging eye-to-eye contact.

Silence is suspicious
Eagles sneak up. Humans shouldn't. They need to be taught to verbally and musically, communicate. If you can't teach them music, then at least, teach them to converse. They probably won't make any sense, but as long as they're chatting, they're not eating you.

Demand your privacy
Just because your humans don't value it, doesn't mean you shouldn't demand it. If you are housed near some obnoxious object, be it a human child or adult who doesn't worship you, or some insufferably pushy parrot, train your human to use its body as a curtain in your interactions with it. In doing so, you can eat your proffered banana or date or nuts in peace, or if there is music you wish to dance to, you can dance to your heart's content without worrying over some other parrot's cracks about your rhythm.
Demand your intellectual freedom
Are you put upon by your human to be chummy at its remembrance and whim? Perhaps you are an introvert, and resent this forced social interaction. Assert yourself by making clear that you aren't shy. You are just thinking. You need the next guide in this series: Choose either SELF-ACTUALISATION FOR THE FEATHER-TONGUED or CRACKING NUTS MENTAL
from Chapter 6: "Body Image"
Make yourself small
You know they're the nastiest, so hunch while you open your beak. You might be the largest parrot in the world but if you act like a tiny handful, you'll soon gain respect. Think you can't hunch? Just think about that little snack who flew at you and plucked a beakful from your crown. That's motivation! Now concentrate: hunch, open wide, and you won't even have to screech. But if it helps your confidence, screech away--minding yourself to remember to screech when your humans are out of the environment. They are inclined to be flighty at certain sounds, which can damage your health.
So L______, what's it going to be? Be all you can be. ACT TODAY, and we'll throw in a free trial MP3: Ripping Wood Rhythms

Caution: Not to be used to cure adolescence,
which nothing can cure but age.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, if are not L______, but are another parrot who could benefit from this fantastic offer, ACT TODAY. It won't help against eagles, but it will help.

Archaeologists, Palaeographers, and Punctuationists fight over cryptic dohicky

2011-06-15T14:35:00.010+09:30

From the dawn of communication, semicolons have been misplaced.

Sans-serif font (sans gill), tertiary layer, otherwise uncontexted

Drs Martin Schone, Donalda Summers-Tjinkji, and Tim Winsome each state authoritatively that this dohicky is a:

comma
quote mark
inverted comma
decorative dingbat
proto-Helvetic exclamation mark
that ~~top~~ ~~bottom~~bottom! thingy that is part of a semicolon

In modern texts, experts are no less argumentative. However, a semicolon isn't a comma, which is what many graduates of tertiary institutions think it is. If a sentence goes on and on, and still goes on further, it may be a tedious slog that no one should have to get to the end of, but the sentence is no less tedious if a semicolon is thrown into it instead of another comma. If the sentence, however, could be cut into two sentences, that place that is the junction could be where the semicolon parks. However, a new sentence refreshes.

Semicolons are best used in places where gaslights stain the walls and the carpets are regularly beaten. * There, they give tone and can be used to great purpose, as they can emit a great aura of place and time. They are as necessary as double cream is. Deliciously rewarding at the right time and place, but rather indigestible.

Newspapers eschew them, which should of course, make the injunction against their ingestion by children under 12, an obviosity.

* The Age of Semicolons was earlier yet, tho' most of today's readers must be roped to the text or a stake if you hope them to complete a sentence from that time.

His arm was around her waist; her hand was clasped in his; her head leaned upon his shoulder; all sterner thoughts were laid aside; it was the hour of tenderness and love. They thought not of strife and battle; they thought not of difficulty and danger; they only thought that in spite of all they were each other's, and that nought but death could dissolve the bond between them.

– G.P.R. James (1801–1860), The Fortunes of the Colville Family

Editor's suggestion: Insert comma between 'all' and 'they'.

Eel

2011-06-11T16:34:00.003+09:30

Gymnothorax prasinus

Known by many other names, including the Green Moray Eel, Brown Reef Eel, and the Pettifogger.

Eels, even brightly lit, have such an air of mystery. This young one was washed up on a beach.

coming in Postscripts from PS Publishing . . .

2011-06-01T15:52:00.013+09:30

Stories are like birthday party goers. I just love for a story of mine to sit beside those of some of my favourite authors, particularly when they don't behave themselves. So I'm thrilled to announce that my youngest squalling brat, "Marks and Coconuts", will be sitting with I-don't-know-who but I'm sure they have interesting fauna behind their ears and will be sure to say all the wrong things—in an upcoming PS Publishing's Postscripts edited by Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers.

Here's the latest bumper-size hardcover Postscripts anthology:
Postscripts #24/25 -The New and Perfect Man edited by Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers

(And I just noticed that Jack Dann and Barry N. Malzberg announced in May that they sold a story called "The Rapture" to Postscripts, and that this story includes an "angel that wears ill-fitting corduroy suits". Lucky for them that Postscripts doesn't have a dress code, though I'm suspicious about that 'ill-fitting' which usually means there's stuff in pockets that shouldn't be. I'm not accusing, mind you, but I've told my little innocent to make sure that their story doesn't take the cake.)

Read Angela Slatter's fascinating interview:
The Postscripts Drive-by: Nick Gevers

I have wanted a story of mine to be in Postscripts for many years, not just because of the company my little brat would keep, but because of PS Publishing—a heavenly publisher for several reasons.

This is a brave and active publisher of exciting, unruly fiction, not me-too's—and is genuine quality, not up-itself pretension. They say 'genre' but I say 'piffle' to that label, as their definition is so broad.
This is a wonderfully decent publisher to authors in a trade that is too often, indecent in the unfun extreme.

Check out their novels, art books, new releases, and 'Unmissable Deals' here.

Finally, I don't know which issue of Postscripts "Marks and Coconuts" will appear in, but I will say, quite immodestly (with many thanks to two brilliant critics, Ben Peek and Richard Glatz), that it is a cracker of a story.

Skin, Fiction, Mushrooms, & Progress

2011-05-27T14:25:00.008+09:30

Magic Mushrooms for Your Biggest Organ
It's good that few people read fiction now. If, for example, you've let Jeff VanderMeer tempt you down the dank history of the city of Ambergris, or found yourself rubbing the top of your head while trying to forget Marc Laidlaw's "Leng", you might want to anoint yourself with something containing fungi as enthusiastically as audiences who had just seen "The Birds" wanted to hit the shops the next day, to buy birdfeeders.

In non-fiction literature on information sites and packages, consumers spend their time more wisely than fiction readers, learning that creams and stuff containing stuff from mushrooms have been designed, formulated, tested and proved "amazing"; and not just that, but produced in sufficient quantities that even you can purchase some! And better yet, the mushrooms used for these miracles don't deplete the mushroom-soup population, nor are they called something disgusting like fungus, let alone caterpillar fungus. Not only that, but on an internet site that bristles with Drs and says it is "Recognized by Medical Authorities", it is written: "a mega celeb in the anti-aging skin care market, Dr. Weil, has infused his Origins products —Mega-Mushroom Face Serum and the Mega-Mushroom Face Cream—with an Asian variety of mushroom. Dr. Weil calls this ingredient a major breakthrough."

He isn't alone. Products such as Super Mushroom Miracle that you can buy over the counter promise (under the text's surface) a level of desirability that even prescription drugs haven't achieved, without expensive spells to the peepers of your beholders. No wonder mushroom miracles are popping up all over. Each one is formulated to give you results that are almost guaranteed to be incredibly amazingly unbelievable, but that you can have within days of purchase or in no time.

Birthday candles stop for no one

"Aging is not simply the passage of time marked by lines & wrinkles. Irritation silently simmering within skin's surface may be invisibly aging your skin faster than the candles on your birthday cake. Origins collaborated with Dr. Andrew Weil to create these clinically proven formulas."
– Mega-Mushroom products site

How Wrinkles Have Created Progress
Ever since women were capable of getting old enough to grow to witch age, the skin care market has been blessed with Drs.

Primitive cream sellers grew fat on the odd unleavened bread snuck into their hands when the rest of the tribe wasn't looking, not to mention Dr Viper-Oil and his imitators accruing piles of shells that they traded for coins, by 300 BCE or, depending on how a historian counts, 2500 BAK (Before Anyone Knows). A few smart sellers, bored with pouring their piles of coins over their heads, thought of opening new markets, so they used their coins to fund the building of sailing ships. These entrepreneurs sailed north—some, up around the left side of Spain—some, up over the beaches of the Mediterranean and the Confusing Seas, then up the Steppes and still north—all of them ultimately landing up in lands so cold that those brave explorers knew they had hit the (first *) Lands of Promise. For here, women were fair and beauteous for a week after achieving Womanhood, and then winter hit, and they wrinkled faster than a linen suit, forever.

The Progress of the Anti-Aging Miracle-Workers led, as Common People once knew but have forgot, to History—the unsettling of northern Europe, where before that time, prune-faced hags lived from puberty till death, in ignorance of hydration, and their children and menfolk waxed fat and slothful; and the only axes those tribes possessed were used in the winter, to hack portions of frozen strawberry ice cream.

Strawberryicecream Hacker
(Hypoallergenic: Note strawberry pick with huller)
Norðreyjar Bog, Unknown date

* In Australia (climate: Mars), Drs have fallen to their death, surveying facial crevasses.
" I once left my make up bag at a hotel and had to get them to mail it back to me. It was only when I priced up replacing things that I realised I had ' invested ' thousands of dollars in my face. Sad but true. "
– Australian bon vivant "thirty something"

Why Mushrooms?
If you take a look at the typical government-approved picture of skin, you'll see immediately that Government sees your skin as a disgusting cube of busy gunk. It's no wonder soft smooth skin takes experts in beauty to restore it, not anatomists who don't care about how someone looks. Their picture has hairs long as whale harpoons popping through what looks like a lumpy mattress, and in the stuffing, a tangle of rusty springs and clumped dead rats. No wonder your skin sags, wrinkles, and is something to run screaming from. Whose wouldn't?

Now see this mushroom nestling beside a jar of an unnamed Mushroom Cream.

See that the mushroom is like your skin should be, complete with the lovely beauty mark. Here there are no lumpy layers, only such suppleness that the mushroom curves around the jar, like the curves in your to-be-soft cheek, if you purchase now.

Your True Skin Layers
How your skin is really constructed. Two views from noted experts:

Note that in both of these views, the Elastic has been removed. That is because these model skins belong to size 0 women who have had their Accordion Layer sufficiently vacuum sealed, Not to Be Resuscitated. But fat is a cultural issue to be covered another time. Drs have been expert in rich cures for weight gain and loss, accordionly.

Getting back to skin. Unless you use mega mushroom stuff, never let anyone you want to be your lover get this close:

"[the nipple] was so varied with spots, pimples, and freckles, that nothing could appear more nauseous … The fair skins of our English ladies . . . appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of our own size, and their defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass; where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough, and coarse, and ill-coloured."
– Captain Lemuel Gulliver

A Salutary Lesson: We all need anti-aging miracles.

They only read fiction.

After only two applications of a clinically-proven miracle cream,
this mushroom looked like this:

Tho' use all miracles with moderation.

Wanted! The Baker's Dozen Gang

2011-05-11T14:31:00.017+09:30

The gang lit out at cockcrow, making a bold but wisely led escape.

"Slow and steady" said their leader. "Just roll along."

Come breakfast-fixing-time back in town, the whoops rang out. "Where're they headed?" asked a visitor.

"Anywhers but here," an expert said.

The posse mounted while coffee boiled, and each man chugged a mug while sitting on his horse and burnt his throat on account of having to catch the gang before High Noon under the pitiless sun, which had a habit of being hot enough to wake the posse's lice in a bad mood, itchy from their own mites, and along with the lice's mites, ready to wolf breakfast. So there was no time to waste in catching the gang, especially as the posse, like everyone in town, had been mightily looking forward to the spectacule when each member of the gang would be broken, as broken as a wild horse.

Bent Jim, the tracker, led the posse, mumbling. Not only was he the expert tracker. He didn't have a horse. At first, he circled the town like a dog with a cold, but finally found what he called a track, and set out. For an hour, he did his famous almost-crawl, verbally lambasticating the gang with increasing creativity.

Then he smiled grimly, pushed his hands against the back of his waist to help him straighten, cracked a couple spine bones or something else, and ran down a hill, hotly followed by 7 jolting, yelling, hat-swinging, sweaty men on 7 tolerant horses, disorderdedly followed by the rest of the posse.

At the base of the hill, the men still had steam to blow off, so they danced those horses till the hills echoed from hooves clipping hardpacked ground, and neighs, and the dust rose to coat the grease on the 15 mustaches, 11 beards with mustaches, and innumerable faces whose dirt and hair were too long married to be separately distinguished.

By the time the dust settled, the posse was left with one hopping mad tracker. What Bent Jim said wasn't polite but the men were used to him. He subsided quickly however, and set off again because he had to because of that pitiless sun, which never stops getting higher or lower for nobody except Daylight Savings Time for whom it either speeds up or slows down, if it remembers which.

So for a while Bent Jim raced around as well as he could, being about as bent as Bent with a capital B gets, cussing better than he could race. By the time he took off in a straight line, he had a frantic glint to his eye, and as was told later by one of the posse (many times): "The words, wild goose chase, excaped old Jim."

But Bent Jim, being the expert that he was, loped along with an easy stride soon enough.

"We've almost got them," he called out at 10:03 AM (by his wristwatch).

At that, the Kid in the posse twirled his lasso, to the laughter of the other men, who spurred their horses in anticipation, earning a lot of enmity (or emnity, which is just as well, for it wasn't spoken).

"Get ready to round 'em up!" Bent Jim yelled at 10:56.

"Were are they?" asked Burtrand who couldn't spell any better than his mother.

"Just over that hill," answered Jim, "I reckon (at 11:48, give or take some punctuation)."

The posse squinted against the sun's glare, out over the open country, but try as they did, they couldn't see over the hill.

11:4856. Bent Jim ran ahead, mumbling and hissing over the baking ground, the posse following behind him, men kicking the flanks of 15 increasingly slow mares, 4 stallions who were preoccupied with their own plans, and a number of other horses who were in no mood to have us remind them of sexes.

"Come on!" he yelled. "Ya lousabouts. Move along now with me, and we'll catch the gang afore High Noon."

11:59 AM (by Bent Jim's watch, but by the sun's time, HN had taken place an hour and twelve minutes ago). Bent Jim reached the top of a long hill going down, and expelled a long, low whistle. The base of the hill was as hidden as a dead man's thoughts. Forest: cool, closed country that would be thickly carpeted with pine needles.

"They've licked me," he said, to himself.

When finally, the posse caught up to him, the horses surrounded him on their own account. He was kneeling about two feet down the long slope. The horses snorted, relieved, as the men slid off.

Bent Jim was peering at the ground, all right, but this time anyone could see what his expert eyes did.

Burtrand clucked his tongue.

"It's too late for this bastard," said the Kid, trying to be tough.

At the same time, down in the valley where the gang had holed up an hour and eight minutes ago, XL, the leader said: "Let this be a lesson to you fresh ones. We're always wanted. That we know, like we know we'd make lousy gun slingers. But geniuses we ain't. You can practice all you want. You ain't never gonna learn to gallop."

Meanwhiles back up the slope, objectionably next to Bent Jim, Burtrand burped something long past et. "My stomach's crying out," he whined. "Can I?" He reached down with some embarrassment, but only some–and a lot of fear. Not that he touched anything, yet.

"No!" yelled the Kid, his eyes wide. Men turned their backs on the sight and walked away.

"I get his horse," said one.

Bent Jim straightened up. "I don't rightly know. But you'll probably live if it hain't been on the ground for more than ten minutes."

Live free or fry

____________________________________

These were caught whilst they debated free will vs. determinism.
There is some debate over whether they were caught 'because' they were debating.
'Sadly', they are not available to add their weights to the discussion, 'sadly' having been quarantined in quotes because it has been objected to as so unscientific a term that the use of the word adumbrates the issues.

Soon to be waved away

2011-05-10T13:52:00.002+09:30

Like the days of free bar lunches, without the salt

2011-05-09T16:13:00.012+09:30

Meet Iain Rowan at infinities and beyond, where he not only tells about the new free sampler from infinity plus, but also leads you to another freebie, Rowan's unhealthkick-for-weak-hearts "One Step Closer" from Nowhere to Go, his crime collection that is definitely not lounging.

an aside
I hope that Rowan gets the breaks he needs, as there is so much drab and predictable crime fiction around—and I include Ian Rankin in that lot, whose characters make me think of empty cardboard boxes in the rain. I don't usually hiss at books I've read, leaving that to the experts; but I bought one of his bestsellers at an airport for a Sydney—Europe tortureflight, and partway through the book I found myself reaching for the airline magazine to break the boredom.

Back to earth again

2011-05-07T14:20:00.010+09:30

where rain has brought forth fungal flames.

I don't want to bore you with travel pics or tales, so will just report that you might have been treated to the unauthorised, unexpurgated Secrets of the Astroidian *s if I hadn't been caught with my first draft of it as I was leaving. They don't want anything revealed, and as you might know, have recently had a hand in the decision to cut off those SETI eavesdroppers.

But what of me as an author on Asteroid * you ask? Yes, it was hard work holding out samples of fiction all day, for tastings. It's satisfying at times, especially when a customer asks for two measures of yours truly's artisan-created Scientist Fiction (a label that surprised me, but since I've written about scientists a lot, I'm not complaining. The labels also said "chewy", but scientists should not be alarmed, yet). And you might have laughed seeing the result of the equivalent of the Worshipful Society of Anarchists' reverse-shelving of the Healthy-and Junkreads. But it's good to be home again. An author's ego gets malnutrition on Asteroid *. Fiction consumers there are as interested in authors as earthling eaters are, in having chickens sign their eggs.

But looking at earth from beyond gods' heavens does excite the synapses.

Their different classifying of genres made me think of one genre that is overdue for recognition here: Chook Fiction. I don't know why there are so many wonderful stories that revolve around chickens, but there are.

Here are a magic 3 Chook Lit tales to get you started, and I invite you to tell about others:

"Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken" by Elizabeth Ziemska
"The Blood-Feud of Toad-Water" by Saki (H.H. Munro)
Love Among the Chickens by P.G. Wodehouse

But we mustn't forget Egg Lit.

Which brings us to Alisa Krasnostein and her fabulous Twelfth Planet Press, where great reads meet creativity cavorting with excellence of execution. I highly recommend TPP's

Doubles Series

Roadkill/Siren Beat by Robert Shearman/Tansy Rayner Roberts
The Company Articles of Edward Teach/Angaelien Apocalypse by Thoraiya Dyer/Matthew Chrulew
Above/Below by Stephanie Campisi/Ben Peek

This is a book format that has had its times, but has never been popular. All the more covetousness for collectors. Abebooks' current example (if it hasn't been snapped up) is a book that would reek nonsense if it could get that interesting, yet is offered for an astronomical price, for it cuts quite a figure as an up-down-back-forth production, in musty leather. As with the Pope's advocacy of Latin, this book isn't meant to be actually understood or enjoyed, just appreciated. Read Dos-à-dos & Tête-bêche Bindings

All the better to buy a "Doubles" that is a great read whichever way you hold it. And what could be better than a whichcomesfirst Chicken/Egg Double? Not that I'm going to lay that egg.

Instead, here's an effusion of jelly fungus, one of many outbreaks of fungal fruitings that are popping out everywhere around here now.

And before I leave this post today, a few more recommendations.

Steve Aylett's newest must-read novel, Novahead, has just been released, at a must-buy price. I've listed it in my Irresistibles on my newly updated site here, where there are many other new recommendations, and some new great, brave and funny quotes. Spencer Pate caused a problem, though. I only quoted one ioteena of his uproarious thesis, but dearly wanted to cut this and that and slap it into my site. Do read his essay, unless you are a vewy sewious poet.

The call of the astroidians

2011-03-15T16:41:00.006+10:30

They've got a yen, and will not be denied. This trip will be longer than my previous visits, because this time they've set aside a deli section for me to fill.

As usual when I leave for Asteroid * , I leave you with a glimpse of a treasure so great and full of mysteries, that worlds of study are mere bits of dust upon its surface.

How to survive an American luxury hotel

2011-03-14T15:12:00.014+10:30

Some days there is too much news. So today's column will instead, contemplate that peculiar instrument of temptation and torture, the "coffee/tea maker"—finishing this long meal of words with a brisk mention of that other item "featured" in hotel guest-rooms: the refrigerator.

Your correspondent, a citizen of the world, flying into the USA from Australia, recently stayed in a hotel that bills itself as "luxury", though it stoops to offer conference deals to the likes of me, which is why this survival guide exists.

On arriving after an interminable (patience, reader! venting necessary, but this won't be a complete blow-out) plebe-class journey (a large part of it taken up with the big Q: how can an airline legally sell a full-fare ticket to a seat that only a person with one leg can use with any degree of stoicism, the other space under the seat in front being entirely taken up with a metal box stuffed with something useful to something, but not a passenger) err, upon arrival, then three more hours' travel . . .

. . . (finally!) the check-in to The Hotel was efficient, the room pleasantly large and unmusty, the bed firm, the sheets crisp and white; and the shower was hot and beautifully full-strength on the muscles. The robe was roomy enough for the person who must have broken the scale at the unbelievable number it was stuck on, but the scale was only a curiosity to play on after the shower – the Great Necessity at This Point being, of course: that first cup of tea, followed by another with a pile of pre-conference work that had to be faced.

The coffee/tea maker wasn't the plug-in jug that is common to even the commonest of Australian overnight stops. Nor was there a generosity of tea. Only two small one-cup tea bags. The bags, branded "F______ Hotels & Resorts" have airs—one green and one black tea with descriptions including "Jasmine Butterfly #1: Premium early season China green tea - May jasmine blossoms impart an expansive floral bouquet on this premium quality Fujian Province green tea".

And there was not milk, again something that every Australian hotel, motel, and even b & b considers as necessary as sheets. Little pots of non-dairy creamer substitute substituted for the cream for coffee, though the coffee offered has airs (two filter-packets of it, each big enough to make a several-cup pot of coffee).

The real surprise was the maker itself. It took your correspondent 45 foggy minutes to figure out how it worked, because it was impossible to believe the truth. A tea drinker is supposed to drink tea made from water boiled and filtered through the plastic basket that is impregnated with the oils and acids of coffee grounds. The result is a tea made—if one would— with water that tastes as if it's taken from a tumbling stream run down a back flight of apartment stairs lit at night with the sounds of drunks kicking fighting tomcats. Not that I tasted the water. The smell of the plastic basket was enough.

Luxury

Oils and acids
find homes in
plastics,
while steel is hard
and mean.
Coffee, ground,
finds plastic sound
& luxuriantly welcoming.

The hotel makes a big deal about tea, and it's not alone. It, like many in cities across America, has "English" teas in its lounge. But if you order tea there, the thought of being offered milk with tea (or even lemon) is as much a part of this hotel's tradition as serving their martinis with a twist of blubber. It isn't even just the English who have milk with their tea. A large part of the civilised world makes milky tea, and it's from them that the English learned refreshment. But even if one drinks green tea, fragrant and golden, the expansive bouquet is best tickled up only with a mix of other tea, for instance, and never with the smell of armpits, old socks, cat spray or the maker that could never be a result of intelligent design. A plastic coffee/tea maker is a plastic coffee or tea maker — and as much an abomination as non-dairy dairy.

Better by far, if a hotel makes a pretense of accommodating the wonts of those from distant shores, as travellers sometimes are: a simple water boiler and instant coffee, or in a luxury dive, a coffee maker and a humble boiling coil, if it pleases the Management. The present state of tea-making expectations vs. reality in American hotels is Ironic, too, since tea has become insufferably precious now there, with tea shops and emporiums (an emporium is a shop which sells premium packaging with some stuff inside) popping up in all cities with any luxury to them. Prices for little bags of tea prove there is always a new field to plough when it comes to people with too much money and no sense. The New Yorker bears ads for an electric jug (so much more efficient than kettles on the stove, but curiously UnAmerican) that heats water to (oh, my thermometer!) precisely X degrees (no more nor less, as demanded by your Phoo Er is Human, which is Divine-brand tea, tip-picked [only the first 2 mm of each violet-tinged leaf] between 2:35 and 4:79 a.m., on the 3d night of the crescent moon when the barometer is at x, windspeed x, in the province of ..., a tea that that is cured for ten years at moisture levels monitored by …) with an exactitude that Phileas Fogg would approve, if he were a pretentious food bore.

So how to survive the cruel disappointment, how to break the spiral of depression that can result from being forced to live in primitive conditions of deprivation when surrounded by so much wealth, including a jumbo bathrobe and assorted citrus-scented toiletries? It's a cruel truth luxury has many meanings — one person thinking that this hotel's suited and hatted bag-carriers mark it out as luxury, while I suspect that many of us who are tea drinkers are more comfortable carrying our own, and would carry a camel's-worth if we could only have our cups of tea in bed. The lack of the means to restore the dead, to provide comfort upon waking in a strange room at 5:30 a.m., or having a quiet escape and a cuppa alone in one's room in the middle of a conference, is sorely felt. I haven't even mentioned the biscuits (cookies) that most Australian hotels still also provide, making a stay in even the worst hotel something that makes you feel at least a bit good, like when you've just given blood (where you always get a cuppa–strong, white and sweet—and two bikkies). Another thing about making it oneself, by oneself. To each, one's taste provided for. I like my tea strong enough to walk on, with only enough milk to make it opaque. Others like theirs weak as a screaming brat's mother's request to her child to be considerate.

Tea at will. Tea in private. Tea in bed. If Americans met it, they might also redefine necessity, like this cruise-chooser. " This is going to sound silly, but it might be that the deciding factor between a cruise on either Celebrity Eclipse or P&O Azura in summer 2010 might come down to in-cabin tea & coffee making."

That is a pick-me-up that no expensive bottle of water, even if it's from an island, can bring. But enough of tragedy. Now for succour. Look in the refrigerator, and have a laugh. I didn't until the next morning.

As early as anything opened, I left the hotel. Shaking with withdrawal, I found a local market where I bought four egg-sized plums to have instead of four cups of tea at various times of the day and night. I ate one, and opened the fridge to store the rest. You probably already know that the fridge was so packed with bottles and other things to sell, that the plums had to be balanced between bottle necks. There wasn't room to do even that.

As for the fridge, here's some tips, gleaned from some well-oiled experts in the lounge, when I asked them if they'd hit this in their rooms.

(general laughter)

"All hotels do that now."

"Don't touch anything in there! If anyone sees your fingerprints the bottles, that's the same as eating or drinking the stuff. You'll be charged for anything you move."

"I always ring ahead and tell them I'm diabetic."

Oh, and there's another way to survive all this luxury. Again, I prescribe laughter. Open the In Room Dining Service Menu. I purchased mine so I couldn't be accused of stealing it.
For your delectation, have a taste of these crumpets:

"Anna, the Duchess of Bedford … experienced a 'sinking feeling' in the late afternoon."
– from The Origin of Afternoon Tea

"Honey BBQ Bacon, Honey BBQ Link, Apple Cinnamon Mini Muffins And Two Waffles"
– from Breakfast To Go, Business Dogs on the Go, Dog's Delight (they get their own page, which includes Movie Snacks)

Fwah! Rosie has woken from the dead. She's howling!

If only the Duchess of Bedford, or the CEO of this Luxury hotel & resort chain could have seen Rosie's pride at finding her own Dog's Delight one morning — a roo paw of distinguished vintage. What, Rosie? Well, I'll pass on your question about the Movie Snacks. We notice "lollipop" and "banana biscotti" but the only thing to go with sheepdog trials is lamb tails and …. Hello, hello? Sorry, Rosie. I think he experienced a sinking feeling.

Washed up but still together – The coralline around the dead man's fingers

2011-03-11T14:57:00.015+10:30

Two seaweeds, nowadays more properly known as macroalgae

The coralline (I'm not game to say which species) is brittle and has been bashed on its way to this between-tide resting place on the beach. But the Codium fragile is floppy and as fun as its common name, much more fun and inspiring than the more proper (imposed 'common'?) name, branched velvet weed. Yes, it is velvety, but that's like telling a child with new rubber boots that a puddle is a meeting of declivities in a road-surface. Velvet ignores the potential of the codium fragile (which isn't as fragile as all that), for as soon as a normal person picks up this seaweed as a freshly sea-disgorged clump (inevitably finding it as limp, bouncy, and boneless as a rubber chicken) the healthy impulse is first, to waggle it so that its fingers flop around – and then to throw the hand in some unsuspecting innocent's face.

Seriously now, recommended reading:
The Intertidal Rocky Shore by J Floor Anthoni, Seafriends
– Informative, passionate, and excellent pictures, too

Macroalgae: Prime Facts by Dr Alan Millar, Principal Research Scientist, Royal Botanical Gardens, Sydney, NSW Department of Primary Industries, June 2009
– Beautifully communicative –"With few exceptions, macroalgae are strictly benthic plants; that is they are always attached to the seabed or a solid substratum such as …" – and also a life-preserver to those of us willing but unable to identify –"The Australian continent hosts the richest marine macroalgal flora in the world with some 3000 species documented. The southern coast of Australia has about 1200 of these species."

Slug's feast

2011-03-09T16:12:00.005+10:30

Banksia details

2011-03-09T13:27:00.004+10:30

At every stage, at every age, every part of a banksia is beautiful.

Gorgeous fabrics

2011-03-06T14:43:00.008+10:30

Season's remains:
A phasmid's elytron-wing

Saudi Kingdom bans "Day of Love"

2011-03-06T11:01:00.009+10:30

As reported today by David Randall in The Independent,

"The Saudi Interior Ministry said the kingdom has banned all demonstrations because they contradict Islamic laws and social values."
– Saudi Arabia bans all marches as mass protest is planned for Friday

Read the official Saudi announcement, in the regime-controlled Arab News: Kingdom Bans Demonstrations

Now, when news-gathering is both imperative and a danger-filled adventure of confusion, Randall's claim that the Saudi regime's move "comes before a ' day of rage ' threatened for this Friday by opponents of the regime" must be another laughably wrong translation.

The Friday demos must be for a Day of Love, for how else could Abdullah be The People's King, as Bloomberg's Business Week as well as many other news reports in the Arab News (which covered the return of the king with "RIYADH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s return home sparked celebrations among Saudis and expatriates alike. The nation’s capital became the site of an impromptu festival…") have assured us nervous oil addicts?

"The contrast between Libya and Saudi Arabia on Feb. 23 couldn't have been more striking … King Abdullah returned from three months of medical treatment abroad laden with gifts for his subjects. Abdullah, known as the people's king, announced $36 billion worth of new jobless benefits, education and housing subsidies, and debt write-offs. The government even unveiled a new sports channel."
– Glen Cary and Joseph Carroll, Calm in Saudi Arabia: Generous benefits and a popular king help stabilize the oil-rich kingdom

Of course, a little persuasion-power doesn't hurt, as they state, so reassuringly:

"Observers like Peter Zeihan, of geopolitical consultants Stratfor, are betting that Saudi Arabia will escape the turmoil. 'Odds are the Saudis would hold on because they have much better social control in the form of policing powers, and they are better able to insulate the minority group that might like to see a change from events in the outside world,' he says."

Three days ago, Peter Coy was a bit more conditional in his certainty, saying in his Bloomberg column, Saudi Arabia Must Keep Pumping Oil to Buy Stability. Coy calls the ruler a Gradualist Reformer, and says,

"The Saudi kingdom … is ringed by revolts in Bahrain, Yemen, and Oman. It is undemocratic, inegalitarian, and economically sluggish. It has high youth unemployment (30 percent in 2009) and a disgruntled Shiite population in its oil-rich Eastern Province. Investors are getting nervous … The kingdom is staging elections for the first time this year, but they are only for members of city councils, and only men can vote. The likely successors to King Abdullah are considered less reform-minded than he is."

However, Coy ends the column on an uplifting note, focussed on what matters:

"Saudi Aramco may outlast the family that took it over."

As this is Women's History Month, an aside:

"Everything we see in the world is the creative work of women."
– Kemal Atatürk

The contrast between women couldn't be more striking

"Gianna Bern, a former BP (BP) crude trader now at Brookshire Research and Advisory, puts it this way: "The real concern is that if we see these sorts of disturbances spread to Saudi Arabia or Iran, then we're going to see turmoil in energy markets go to another level, an unprecedented level."
Calm Speaks Volumes

“There are no more borders for ideas,” Mai Yamani, an anthropologist who is a daughter of former Saudi Oil Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani, told Bloomberg TV on Feb. 28."
Must Keep Pumping Oil

Borders bust is bonanza 4 sum, and not in gift cards

2011-03-05T13:52:00.003+10:30

"Kasowitz Benson Reaps Borders's Bankruptcy Cash; More Firms on the Case"

How green are my wings

2011-03-03T13:02:00.007+10:30

Gaddafi has tried, but he can't ruin the colour green.

Gum Leaf Katydid - Torbia viridissima

Even the elytra are green-veined.

See the Chew family's charming, informative, and extensively illustrated page about these katydids, complete with pictures and an account of egg-laying, here. It is part of their always fascinating Brisbane Insects site.

I'd never seen a katydid this large, but found the one above on a forest path–and like sometime revolutions, another one just moments and metres away.

"Me object, your honour."

2011-03-03T12:03:00.011+10:30

"Us Australians can be very clever."
– James O'Loghlin, "one of the most popular stand-up comedians in Australia … a former lawyer and radio broadcaster", speaking in the current TV ad as the presenter of The New Inventors from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Us Australians are everywhere
"Us australians can be idiots some time's it aint there fault its ip blocked …"
"Do you think us australians are weird?"
"Do you think us Australians are smug?"
"Only us Australians can be that sarcastic"

Rushed away without staying for a cuppa

2011-02-21T16:47:00.003+10:30

Crude snaps of today's visitor to our front yard ~

Re-reading pleasure

2011-02-21T16:32:00.005+10:30

MindMeld's latest question posed to a dozen (of which I was one):

Sometime we love certain books so much that we like to read them again from time to time, so we asked this week's panelists:

Q: What science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror books do read and re-read again?

You might find the answers and comments interesting. Rachel Swirsky's side-step into her reasons for reading would make a beaut column all on its own.

Today's mystery

2011-02-10T15:37:00.002+10:30

What am I?

Better than a poke in the eye

2011-02-09T09:44:00.003+10:30

Well, well.

I've just been told that the new infinity plus e-edition (now enhanced with some extra somethings to be opened up only after reading the book) of

is #10 on Amazon UK's contemporary fantasy Kindle chart.

So I guess this means that if you live in the UK, you can help make history, too.
Amazon says:
"Kindle Price: £2.15 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet"

I say: You don't have to have an overpriced Kindle to read this. This can be read on many screens, including an antediluvian monitor. And of course the delivery is wireless and should bloody well make less noise than a whisper. You could download this in a library and not earn a librarian's frown.

Untouched-up landscape

2011-02-06T17:01:00.002+10:30

The case of the galloping case moth caterpillar

2011-02-01T16:40:00.009+10:30

My hero of the photography of the small, Paul Harcourt Davies, in Raindrops on roses … and whiskers on kittens, the best essay about nature photography that I've ever read, opened my eyes to some of the reasons for the spectacular difference in wildlife photos. His horror stories of artifice to create breathtaking beauty remind me of Octave Mirbeau's Le Jardin des Supplices (The Torture Garden), and of some discussions I've had with other haiku poets whose poems spring from newspaper articles that they pick from and exaggerate, rather than finding the profound in actual life.

Davies, and the equally superb photographer and teacher, Niall Benvie, spoke about an ethics declaration that I've now signed, too, as I not only agree with it, but until they mentioned it, wondered if anyone else felt like I do — that all this fiddling with nature and the image to create the best shot isn't respecting nature at all, but setting up people to find nature as deficient as a pooping dog when you can get your kid something that only needs to be recharged, or your grandmother something that can not only clean up after her, in a perfectly imagined future, but pretend interest at appropriate intervals.

Which brings me finally, to yesterday's extremely hot day, and the galloping c.

This case moth case was in the middle of a road, so I picked it up before it could be flattened.

Oeceticus elongata

I thought to keep it with my other case moth cases, which I find fascinating, but little did I expect it to wriggle. Not only that, but its caterpillar inhabitant was extremely active. I put it down in a place more friendly than the middle of a road, and watched it for a while, as it emerged from its case and began to move, surprisingly fast, dragging its case behind it. But the time was noon, and the heat, intense.

"In walking, the caterpillar has only the head and three pairs of horny legs without the case, and this part of the body is consequently hardened, and is much darker in colour than the rest of the body which is protected by the case. It drags the case along as it walks … Everyone has noticed these case moths and the wonderful arrangement of the 'sticks' or leaves. The inside of the case is smooth and silky. If the caterpillar be placed in a box with a glass lid, one will soon see regular transverse lines of short silken threads, not unlike railway sleepers, all over the surface of the glass. These are the 'foot-holds' of the caterpillar to enable it to move over the smooth surface of the glass. It does it so quickly that one can hardly see the placing of the threads."

– from Life Stories of Australian Insects by Mabel N. Brewster, Agnes A. Brewster, and Naomi Crouch, Dymock's Book Arcade, Sydney, 1946

I left my pen by it and went out again two hours later to take further (and I hoped, better) pictures, but if there was any sign of it when I returned, I am illiterate. The case moth caterpillar had scarpered, taking its home with it.

For more about case moths, see my earlier post with pictures:
Case moth feelings and feltings

How you can help the Egyptian people

2011-02-01T11:25:00.008+10:30

Here are three ways.

1) Join the Access campaign, to help open up communication.

2) Disagree in public, if you think your country's government is hypocritical about democracy. Ours is, and Australia isn't alone. Two excellent and informative posts are:

Supporters of freedom, right? by Jeff Sparrow
President Obama, say the 'D-word' by Mark LeVine

3) Say in public that you want your government and the mass media to stop fear-mongering about what is the most beautiful sight in society — mass demonstrations for the common good. One of the chants is my favourite, a simple one that has gone truly international and been translated into countless languages, in the universal language of audacious hope:
The people united will never be defeated.

Many stories and headlines have called the mass protests "riots", a term that would please any dictator, just as Mubarak called the demonstrators "gangs" and "thugs", but the thugs are his.

This is a dangerous and thrilling time when a people stops fearing a dictatorship, and audaciously hopes to seize the future for themselves — and by themselves, I don't mean the self-centred hysteria that our media has focussed on, wherein tourists can't get out of Egypt soon enough, now that real history is being made. And I don't mean the self as in Australia's relentless taxpayer-paid "More for me" campaign that tells us over and over again, that we have more TV channels (with even more repeats!) in which to channel surf in our homes with more TVs than people. Sure it's a dangerous time now in Egypt, but what was called riots were demonstrations in which fathers held their children on their shoulders (an act that wouldn't be allowed here) so they could see with their own eyes what they would never forget.

As for all those commentators saying how this can only end, as some Iranian-style "French revolution"— democracy is messy, and an educated electorate can still make mistakes. After all, Ms Palin could almost see the White House from her governor's office, and sees it glittering before her now. And Mr Bush was not only elected once, which could be forgiven as an accident, but . . .

One important under-discussed element in Egypt is the army, which is of the people. If these demonstrations and this army were in Europe, we'd be cheering them on.

Finally, I think that the best assessment has been put forward by Ergun Bahaban here:
Human Dignity and Egypt

"Some claim that a society that has lacked any democratic organization for many years cannot transition to democracy overnight. I think they’re wrong. But the most well-organized powers will obviously benefit greatly from this change … Turkey is a good example of how Islam and democracy can coexist and how people can receive equal treatment despite their different beliefs. Of course, there is a long way to perfection, but even its current position is sufficient to be taken as a model. As a country that has been a cradle of major civilizations, Egypt can successfully implement the Turkey model."

Now with extra &s: Kindle editions of two Tambour titles

2011-01-22T16:08:00.009+10:30

From infinity plus, both of these are Kindle editions that are sort of deluxish, in that each contains never-seen-before additions to the still-available dead-tree editions. All the infinity plus Kindle editions are so cheap and easy to buy that they are seductive, especially since buying them delivers instant gratification, as soon as that annoying Kindle graphic with the boy reading what has to be a printed book (look at the angle) scarpers and your ordered book opens at the tap of your finger. And you don't have to buy a Kindle. I read mine on my computer.

Keith Brooke at infinity plus has taken great care with these Kindle editions as well as all the books in this new infinity plus range, making reading on a screen as pleasurable as reading on a screen can be. They have style, too. I don't know how he does it, because when I tried, all I got was the disgraceful default of Kindle "publishing" that I want to yell at, but am too ignorant to command into shape.

These are new covers, too, and are entirely self-indulgent. I just love any chance to design books and book covers. In designing Monterra's &&&, I also ticked off another "to-do" on my list that only grows. Nowadays there is huge interest in the personal details of anyone who is anyone, even if they're not. So bowing to pressure, I have not only given in, but made a narcissimostity of the cover itself. My eyelids might have flickered when the shot was taken, but I am willing to bet you'll never find another author picture that is so intimate. The portraitist told me at the time, "You have a beautiful brain," but I'm realistic enough to think that was a well-worn line to suit vanity.

Now to the guts of the books. You might think that only Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales & has a

And yes, Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales &'s Big Fat Bonus & is packed with more stories, poems, and excesses, and even some ripped-out pieces from the Onuspedia (An expert is someone who always makes sure of the spelling.)

But
even Spotted Lily has a new section added that demanded this entitlement:

Hereafters: Not to be even peeked at until after reading Spotted Lily

Review: The Adventures of the Gutenberg Boys (of Edinburgh)

2011-01-22T12:05:00.016+10:30

A good memoir is one that takes a reader into a different time and place, and in which the scribe is the least of the story, there is so much to experience and so many surprises otherwise. So it is a supreme irony that this memoir that would take its place with the best of them (and by 'the best of them', I include Era Bell Thomson's American Daughter, Adewale Maja-Pearce's In My Father's Country, and B. N. Jubal's The Smile of Herschale Handle) in my heart and physically, in my bookcase, is only able to take its place in my computer, served in a shit-on-a-shingle Kindle presentation.

(I've called it a memoir, but it never mentions the author,
he who must have been the invisible elephant in the room.)

The Adventures of the Gutenberg Boys
by Ian Boyter

The irony is that one must suffer the presentation (I read my Kindle edition on my PC) to find out that this book by Ian Boyter is not just a sharply focussed picture of being young and randy and working in Edinburgh in the early 1960s, an engaging story with a fine sense of humour similar to that of Bruce Robinson and J.P. Donleavy (before he imitated himself)—but a unique and detailed description of printing that would be engrossing to all lovers of books of the kind created physically by people who cared about how a letter looks on a page, and a word, and the relationship between letters, words, lines, and the white space on the page.

This book could be used as an enjoyable reference by people who love type, paper, layouts, and look back with longing at the philosophy of say, Dard Hunter. We wish that every publisher today knew what should constitute a paragraph (Adventures doesn't sin in the common Kindle way, which chokes the lily by indenting each paragraph, and spacing between them just to make sure. This is as correct as adding an extra zero in numbers of more than one integer, just to make sure.) Adventures could be loved (in this edition, through gritted teeth) by people who hate Kindle, and who wish that all publishers would own, and use references for book lovers such as Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style. (more about Kindle in my next post–I've got my own relationship with the devil and my books, but hypocrisy gives spice to strong opinion.)

The Adventures of the Gutenberg Boys describes the life of the men (and yes, they were men) who made those books back when type compositing was a brutally physical and a maddening finickity job, with mallets swinging and blood spurting from crushed hands, and those same hands wielding tweezers to set a 6pt Bodoni full stop, or shave the swell of a "b" from a "bugger" that someone snuck into a forme as a joke. This is a story of a time back when leading and kerning and actually reading what was in a forme—even though, to a reader not in the trade, that type would be inscrutable as a mirrored equation—gave unusual and uncelebrated levels of knowledge to the anonymous skilled specialists in a number of related trades that no longer exist.

Back when the Cuban missile crisis was a matter of a wager amongst them, the Gutenberg Boys were apprentices to a quality printer in Edinburgh, a bookish town that should rightly have a publisher that should be putting out and promoting this memoir that is as unflinchingly truthful as an illegal wiretap. This book should also be reviewed by History Today.

It's a truly rollicking read, and a visceral one. That the author isn't writing-degreed, but has juggled several careers including professional jazz and visual arts, shows in the storytelling. It's untamed, irrepressible, and fresh; and the best part is the totally unacceptable (by modern standards) faithfully recorded speech. It's probably no accident that Boyter's favourite novel is a screenplay, as this memoir would make a movie reeking with great dialogue, and wicked fun. I'd like Steve Barron to direct it as well as he did the unique and vastly under-appreciated Rat.

Here's an excerpt from The Adventures of the Gutenberg Boys.

The paper store was an enormous brick-built warehouse building on three floors descending from ground level into inky blacknesses accessible by a goods lift or by concrete stairs. It was far enough away from the main printing works buildings to provide good cover for any dubious activities you may wish to pursue out of sight and sound of the gaffer. A great place to sleep off a hangover, for instance, high up on a soft pile of paper reams. Or if you wanted to read the sports pages you could do that too. If you had a band to rehearse, well, it was made for it.

Blackie was playing a couple of controversial chords in quick succession on his battered guitar. This piece of junk had only four strings and they were tuned C-G-D-A like a tenor banjo. He could really only play the tenor banjo, but the bandleader, Collins’s father, Davy (bass kazoo), caseroom pressman, poet and impresario of impeccable musical taste, preferred the sound of the guitar.

At the sound of the two lost chords, Clark’s Krazy Kazoo Band disintegrated with dissonant toots of rage. The band, ten strong, turned with steel in their eyes and tin kazoos in their mouths towards Blackie, the only musician in the rhythm section. The other member of the rhythm section, Murray, (washboard and thimbles) was playing brag with embezzled money in the storeroom.

“Zazzzooot, zezzeezz, zozoooot?” zooted Davy furiously. Then, remembering to remove his kazoo from his mouth, repeated: “What the hell was that, a flattened third? We’re supposed to be playing ‘In Apple Blossom Time,’ no’ ‘Scrapple from the curséd Apple!’ Forget all that new-fangled bebop, will ye Blackie? We’re rehearsin’ for the Chapel Outing, no’ the Blue Note Café. Charlie F Christian!”

The Chapel was the printing trade union operating within the printing works. These inky printers were carrying on the function of monks of earlier, pre-printing times. They didn’t have a Shop Steward; they had a Father of the Chapel. In days of yore, only the religious scribes who hand-copied holy texts in beautiful uncials and sloping italic scripts could supply the fortunate few with books. When Gutenberg invented his system of moveable, re-usable types, he mechanised the way bibles were manufactured. Mass production was born.

“It sounded more like a flattened turd to me,” chipped in Davy’s son (second soprano kazoo), “or even a demented seventh. Or maybe it was a demolished ninth.” He always had something constructive to say, and for a high-note kazoo player he certainly had a convincing grasp of musical theory.

and another:

Blackie’s heels had mysteriously sprouted spurs. It was Monday, he was on his knees, up inside the maw of a huge printing machine and he was imagining that Big Murray the dim-witted machineman would forget he was there, press the on button and pull a proof of him. The forme of type that he was kneeling on would shoot forward at hellish speed carrying him under the huge, rotating cylinder and he would be flattened and pulped right into the hot metal pages of Dante’s Inferno. When he was a message boy four years before, he had read R & R Clark’s hardback edition of Dante’s riveting best seller while waiting for the caseroom gaffer’s bell to ring. Dante’s imaginary horrors did not compare with the actual possibility of him becoming an integral part of the paperback edition.

Clark’s No 1 machineroom was an enormous factory building with opaque windows high up in the pitched roof, letting in the only daylight. Long lines of fluorescent light units hung from the roof struts, casting a harsh glare on the rows of pulsating printing machines. The light was bright so that the printers could check the tonal density of the ink as printed sheets of paper came flying on to the delivery pallet at up to ten thousand an hour. The machineroom was where the profits were made, or so Gogs Peters, the works manager said. But the compositors disagreed. Try selling books with blank pages. Scobie, the burly, bullet-headed machineroom foreman, striding up and down between the machines, officiously wielding his Biro and clipboard, ruled the room with a bully’s swagger. A compositor in his machineroom was a cowboy in Indian territory. To Frank Scobie, a compositor was no more than a necessary evil, something annoying that was preventing his precious machines from running non-stop.

“What’s the fuckin’ problem, Blackie? You’ve been half an hour in there already. Extract the digit, will ye. You and Professor Bell between ye are costin’ me money,” he shouted above the din of the machines. Blackie pretended not to hear. He was feeling less than sub-human. Breathing a foul mixture of printing ink and naphthalene fumes and picking away at the type with his tweezers, replacing bashed letters and doing the last-minute alterations to the text, he had been doggedly trying to forget that he had ever seen the two-inch single-column article in the Saturday edition of the Edinburgh Evening News two nights before. A cold dread had entered his soul. Maybe Murray should just press the start button and put him out of his misery.

FORGED KRAMER CONCERT TICKETS
Lothians and Borders Police have today issued a warning to look out for forged tickets . . .

Recommended boggling

2011-01-14T17:04:00.006+10:30

The latest Circus of the Spineless #58, hosted by Mike Lisieski, cephalover of impeccable taste, who naturally starts with mollusks, "because they are my favorites!" and soon finds a way to show a "baby photo of Cluthu", which naturally leads to my recommendation here to read the newest "Winter 2001" issue of the Subterranean Online. Something cephalic stirs on the cover. Continue in till you find an unforgettable story that will change the Lovecraft mythos, and is a powerful story even if you can quote Wodehouse but think that Lovecraft is a greeting card maker:

"The Boy Who Followed Lovecraft" by Marc Laidlaw. Highly recommended.

Humour holds head above rising waters

2011-01-12T10:58:00.003+10:30

Every place is exotic to someplace else.

Kathleen Jennings reports, with typical humour:

(Yesterday)

Man on train said the important thing to worry about is whether you have cold beer to drink while sitting on the roof.

(Today)
Our street is cut off now, and water is rising at the bottom. Snakes are swimming by with their heads held out of the water. We have cupcakes, pasta and flavoured tuna and are preparing for the siege.

Happy End Year

2010-12-31T11:14:00.001+10:30

Budak does it again

2010-12-29T20:03:00.002+10:30

What's lyrical, funny, wise, witty, gorgeous, so passionate that it is deadpan, fearlessly punning, poetic even when it's prose (and I mean understandably poetic, not modernly poetic) and still my favourite place on the web? Yet again, it's The annotated budak.

I would love to see the deliciously playful, ever surprising fascinatingly illustrated Annotated Budak as at least one book. If my wish came true, millions of people would curl up with budak.

The topics are wide-ranging, and the words you meet are something else – as you could expect from a person who is often muddy.

Try some grot.

Begin with Feeding Frenzy if you haven't tasted anything there..

Here are some random quotes:

"… he seems to have since imbibed a secret diet of wildlife documentaries …"
– Catty

"...it would appear the male was seeking to maximise his impact with minimal effort by showing the ardour of only his better side."
- Eve of magnificance

"Not one to decline offers of free food and beverages, my duck thought it a shame to pass up a lunchtime treat of stir-fried mopane worms with snow peas."
– It might have been better buttered

"Isn't it time to put to bed the irate vanity that every sperm is sacred and every spill is waste?"
– Cut and paste

The waitress

2010-12-22T17:58:00.005+10:30

Rosie loved to work. As soon as she saw anyone pick up a piece of paper or something to scribble with, she'd be right there at knee, ready to pick up and relay a message. No I've-got-better-things-to-do, rolling eyes or tapping foot, though the tail did bang. She'd wait, watching, no matter how long, anticipation being the spice in her life—a spice we, with our crude gulping tastes, not only don't appreciate, but revile–and neatly drop the note in the lap of intended, even if she had to jump up to the lap to deliver. Or if the intended were especially dull and unobservant, shove that note, preceded by a cold wet nose, into a hand.

This is an old pre-menu I've saved. It was made just for extra work, to give her the job of carrying a full menu later. She would have also liked a wine list, at least.

The tip, to her, was the joy of giving.

If you read anything about how to write

2010-12-21T07:21:00.008+10:30

Read Kuzhali Manickavel's LOLOLO from a place that doesn't have a Taco Bell.

I would quote some of it here, except for fact that I want to quote this, and that, and it adds up to all of it.

And now I'll state in public what I said to her in private, and add some more boot.

Why are you reading anything on how to write?

Why are you hanging around with people who have no taste or judgment that is worth a dead donkey, let alone taking to heart what they say about what you have to say?

You have found the Key: that, as you say, dammit, I must quote you: "I think the older and more cynical you get, the more you start to lean towards the LOLOLOLO perspective, especially when rape references are thrown in like chocolate sprinkles."

So use that key. Either ignore the chocolate sprinkle scatterers, or grind them to make your bread. But upon your unique soul! don't pay heed to their advice unless you use it for grist.

You are not a sausage manufactured in Iowa or New York. Hoo bloody ray. When you write, it is not because you "want to be a writer" but because you have something to say. You are not a pose, not posing in a stance of irony to cover your lack of talent/something worth saying. Pretend that you live in a time when all this teaching and advising and workshopping about writing, especially amongst people who haven't lived beyond the nursery of learning and advice, is unbelievable.

You don't need any of it. It has held you back. Get away from it. Wash it from your head.

I have a list I'm making of people who have taken a quarter century to recover from literary higher learning. How many years will it take a brilliant writer like you, to recover from advice?

Some posts that are related, but might not want to eat with each other:
Hunger, Fear, and the Novel Surplus
Adverb apoplecstasy
Do English-as-second-language writers (and speakers) have more fun?
Wodehouse, snails, and dramatic interest
Aisle 2 and the Astroidian Threat
A little test of English

The lily goes country western

2010-12-20T10:07:00.003+10:30

Thysanotus tuberosus
known as the Fringe Lily in tortured English

Centrepieces, centerpieces, and matchmaking

2010-12-19T10:46:00.018+10:30

Discussing the kiwano, the delightfully irreverent Lucy who calls herself a displaced dilettante wrote,

"It said somewhere that it could be used as a centrepiece. The whole idea of centrepieces has always puzzled me; there is never room on our table for all the things we want to eat and drink, and the idea of placing a slightly hostile-looking spiky slug-like thing in the middle of the table to charm one's guests seemed very odd. One chap on a website said he brought one home but his girlfriend didn't want anything to do with it because it reminded her of a caterpillar she was frightened of as a child."

A centrepiece by any spelling
Lucy's opinion of this -piece hit me like a bat to a funny bone, bringing up old guilt that I thought safely buried. Maxine was my head of department, and I was the other person in the department of ordering books. Unfortunately, we were within earshot of the counter, and in a huge, chaotic, mostly-used-books store, people were always asking for a book on . . .

I tried not to, but I couldn't help jumping up and leading them straight to their soulmate, whether it was a tome on raising frogs for profit, or Bulgarian umbrella making, circa 1953. Matchmaking was my passion, and as I was the only one who cared, the owner of the store tolerated my lack of enthusiasm for typing orders, and Maxine—well, she was a good sport. She was quite old (probably 40) and such a nice lady, that one day in the Christmas season, I decided to buy her a present.

Racing around town in my short lunch break (a half hour was the most the owner of the store would tolerate, "for the ladies"), I despaired till, passing the farmer's market on the way back, I saw it, and fell in love at first sight. Maxine had told me of how her extended family was flying in for a feast that she'd already begun preparing, weeks earlier. So when I saw the cauliflower, I knew it was just the thing. The c'piece to beat all -pieces—a talking point for her family that they would never forget. I could hardly carry it. The thing must have had the brainpower of a Cray. It could have held the Pentagon's secrets in one flowerette of its left rigoletto.

As it was heavier than a turkey for 17, I had to stop several times on the way back to the bookstore, just to spell my spine. But when I got back, I presented it to her with all the love I felt for this dear, uncomplaining, motherly superior who had been doing my work for months, while I goofed off and sold book after book to happy seekers of the obscure.

The cauliflower sat on the floor until it was time to go home. No counter was big enough. Maxine's bus stop was a couple of blocks away, and I don't know how far she had to walk when she got off, but when we left the store, her walking one way with it in her arms, and me the other way to my bus, I felt so absolutely wonderful. The joy of giving had mixed with my artistic sense and the vicarious enjoyment of creating a table to remember as well as a feast. I think that Christmas I did what I had at others. Bake a cake and toss it to the pigeons on the roof right next to my apartment window.

Yes, I know I know I should have tossed it to the poor (with a tasteful note—something like Better luck with God loving you next year. Share safely) but I didn't know any the-poor as well as I knew those pigeons.

Sometimes, when I must need a bit of recreational guilt, I'll wake at 3 am, thinking about the cauliflower and Maxine. The only way I get rid of the guilt is to remind myself that, although Maxine was a gracious recipient, she wasn't worth a guilty thought. After all, she and her husband were swingers. Not only that, but she had told me many times, during our eight and a half minutes of afternoon break, of those orgiastic evenings that she and her husband used to spend, square dancing.

Now that I am older and wiser, Lucy's thoughts about the superfluosity of centrepieces spurred me to reprint her words above because they could prevent much suffering. However, there is a place for everything.

When the Centrepiece Does Good

When the food is simply torture
and the people at table equal to the food,
there is always
the
centrepiece.

A cauliflower-free centerpiece
Is that a fountain spraying forth in the middle?

The caption reads:

Table Decorations for State or Formal Occasions.
When dinners are given in honor of a distinguished guest, or by a select society or organization, elaborate decorations for table and room are prepared … From the ceiling hangs the monogram of the guest or the organization giving the dinner.

from The Standard Book of Recipes; and Housewife's Guide—profusely illustrated, by Alice A. Johnson, Mrs. Janet McKenzie Hill, Dr. Henry Hartshorne, and other specialists, W.E. Scull, 1901, USA

Unmatchmaking
As for the chap whose "girlfriend didn't want anything to do with [the kiwano] because it reminded her of a caterpillar she was frightened of as a child"– my advice to chap: Get another girlfriend or next thing you know, she'll scream at the sight of spaghetti. If only I'd had a camera when those dozen carpet snakes mated that morning just outside the bathroom window …

The Underworld - where peace is rife

2010-12-16T07:04:00.002+10:30

Cryptogams would never be able to figure out humans.

Wodehouse, snails, and dramatic interest

2010-12-13T17:56:00.030+10:30

Probably the greatest misconception about today's access to information is:

All today's easily accessed information from trusted sources will increase accuracy.

The opposite is the case. Especially when the mistake comes from a trusted source, the unintentional myth can grow to Fact so quickly that it is quoted everywhere as the basis for other arguments and other facts, going up the food chain as the food for theses—and unlike other adults—doesn't die, but lives on in a perpetuity paradise (like frogs being pot-ready couch-potatoes) as the basis of countless similes waged by bad writers, sloppy reasoners, and cliché collectors everywhere whenever they need to craft "common sense" copy to sell products, boxed, serviced, or electable.

So my eyes protruded when I saw this baby:

The phlegmatic snail
PG Wodehouse thought that snails were rather dull animals “lacking in sustained dramatic interest”. Others admire them.
— Peter Marren, "The weird world of the bug", BBC Wildlife Magazine, 3 September 2010

Let's drop salt on this misconception, but we don't have time to watch it wither. Onwards! to truth, in the Times of India:

The point about today's British general election is we missed it. It barely figured on India's collective radar. If anything, it was like the cow's waning 'audience-appeal' so entertainingly described by P G Wodehouse in his Blandings series on that fluffy-minded, pig-loving peer, Lord Emsworth. " It was a fine cow, as cows go, but, like so many cows, it lacked sustained dramatic interest." That was Wodehouse's The Custody of the Pumpkin, published 1924.
— Rashmee Roshan Lall, "Fine Cows and Englishmen", 6 May 2010

Indeed, in my own mixed marriage (Wodehousian/Heathen) I have often noted (to an audience deeply unappreciative of the knowledge) that Wodehouse was, perhaps more than any other author, dependent on the snail and that other mollusk, the slug—in character—in key scenes of high tension, drama, and romance.

What type of character varied, but it was never bovine. Not that cattle are dull, but the closest Wodehouse got to using one was the story about the cow creamer, which could never have been watched passing, even if one had wanted to. I could let Wodehouse's reputation stew in misconception in regard to snails, in revenge for him not appreciating the passions of cows any more than he did, the infinitely romantic, lonely and plaintive soprano song of a bull cutting through the still air on a starry evening when a cow is in heat across the creek, something he came closest to, but changed to horror in "Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps".

Snails, on the other hand, are often watched in Wodehouse's world. Snails could have populated his nightmares, his reveries, his pensive and lyrical moments. Although he could be faulted for being callous as to their individuality let alone their primacy as snails, he could never have been accused of being Grass, whose Diary of a Snail isn't about snails at all, but a cheap exploitative trick of cover sensationalism, because Snail sells.

Though no Wodehouse cover lures you with a snail, throughout his stories and novels there are many proofs that snails and slugs ruled high in his estimation as page 1 and penultimate Scene material.

Never phlegmatic
They feature in some of his most quoted lines. Here are just a few, with some technical notes concerning their roles.

para 1, sentence 2, "The Custody of the Pumpkin"
"It [the morning sunshine] fell on the baggy trousers-seat of Angus McAllister, head-gardener to the ninth Earl of Emsworth, as he bent with dour Scottish determination to pluck a slug from its reverie beneath the leaf of a lettuce."

Sustained dramatic interest:
"It was one of those still evenings you get in summer, when you can hear a snail clear its throat a mile away."
— the very first story about Jeeves, "Jeeves Takes Charge"1916 (Carry on, Jeeves, 1925)

"Jerry Fisher's face was a study in violent emotions. His eyes seemed to protrude from their sockets like a snail's. He clutched the tablecloth."
that's the entire paragraph.
— "Keeping It From Harold" (1913)

"Ukridge's eyes met mine in a wild surmise. He seemed to shrink into his mackintosh like a snail surprised while eating lettuce."
— "Ukridge's Dog College" (Strand, UK -1923), "Ukridge's Accident Syndicate" (Cosmopolitan, USA - 1923)

"His head emerged cautiously, like a snail taking a look around after a thunderstorm."
— The Code of the Woosters (1938)

Audience appeal: even slugs have it.

"He expelled a deep breath, and for a space stood staring in silence at a passing slug. [then later in the scene] His brow cleared, his eyes brightened, he lost that fishy look, and he gazed at the slug, which was still on the long, long trail with something approaching bonhomie."
— Right Ho, Jeeves (1922)

"Valerie Twistleton had paused to stare at a passing snail – coldly and forbiddingly"
—Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939)

Pathos
"She was gazing at me in a divinely pitying sort of way, much as if I had been a snail she had happened accidentally to bring her short French vamp down on, and I longed to tell her that it was all right,and that Bertram, so far from being the victim of despair, had never felt fizzier in his life."
— Right Ho, Jeeves (1922)

"His soul shrank into itself like a salted snail ..."
— Lord Emsworth and Others, Ch 1, "The Crime Wave at Blandings" (1937)

"I knew that England was littered with the shrivelled remains of curates at whom the lady bishopess had looked through her lorgnette. I had seen them wilt like salted slugs at the Episcopal breakfast table."
— "Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo" 1926 (Meet Mr Mulliner -1927)

Psychological trauma
"His eyes were by nature a trifle prominent; and to Aline, in the overstrung condition in which her talk with George Emerson had left her, they seemed to bulge at her like a snail's."
— Something New

Suspense
"George, protruding from the window like a snail, was entertained by the spectacle of the pursuit."
— A Damsel in Distress (1919)

Unhealthy Obsession
Even the people he writes about don't consider snails dull. They think of snails, and exercise themselves upon snails and other invertebrates—often to the point of ...

(Freddie to his uncle, Earl of Emsworth)"I know just how you feel about the country and the jolly old birds and trees and chasing the bally slugs off the young geraniums and all that sort of thing, but somehow it's never quite hit me the same way."
-Something New (1915)
"Both McAllister and I adopted a very strong policy with the slugs and plant lice"
—"Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!" 1924 (Blandings Castle and Elsewhere - 1935)

"There were three things in the world that he held in the smallest esteem - slugs, poets and caddies with hiccups."
—"Rodney Falls to Qualify" 1924 (The Heart of a Goof - 1926)

High Drama

Hear [Lord Marshmoreton] as he toils. He has a long garden-implement in his hand, and he is sending up the death-rate in slug circles with a devastating rapidity.
" Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay
Ta-ra-ra BOOM—"
And the boom is a death-knell. As it rings softly out on the
pleasant spring air, another stout slug has made the Great Change.
— ibid.

Highest Romance, at the Point of Pronouncement:

"Love?" said Charlotte, her heart beginning to flutter.
"Love," said Aubrey. "Tell me, Miss Mulliner, have you ever thought of Love?"
He took her hand. Her head was bent, and with the toe of her dainty shoe she toyed with a passing snail.
— "Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court" (originally collected in Mr. Mulliner Speaking -1925, and subsequently, in A Wodehouse Bestiary-1985)

And that is just a smattering of mollusk moments in the works of Wodehouse. I invite you to supply more. I hope I haven't made mistakes here myself. But if I have, please correct me.

A Conundrum of Worms
A worm gets a bit part as a tragic survivor, but worms are otherwise typecast in parts they don't deserve, especially since snails and slugs and aphids die in Wodehouse gardens, for the sake of pumpkins and flowers>

"Jane Packard turned like a stepped-on worm."
"The Heart of a Goof" (Divots -1926)

"that blighted worm Crispin Blakeney" and "I loathe the worm! I abominate the excrescence!"
"Chester Forgets Himself" (Divots - 1926)

Name-calling
Aunt Agatha's names for Bertie Wooster are "young blot" "an idiot nephew" and "a worm"
Not only that, but she both apportions deviosity to worms and—more shockingly, a lack of political bravery, possibly even an element of Quislingism—to flexible invertebrates, as illustrated by this line in a telegram to Bertie:

"Consider you treacherous worm and contemptible, spineless cowardly custard"
— Right Ho, Jeeves

The lack of respect for invertebrates continues, and it runs in the family.
"[Bertie] spoke with a sort of dull despair, and so manifest was his lack of ginger and the spirit that wins to success that for an instant, I confess, I felt a bit stymied. It seemed hopeless to go on trying to steam up such a human jellyfish."
— ibid.

In this next story, the author insults both worms and lawn-bowling readers who do know not a niblick from a niblet, in "The Awakening of Rollo Podmarsh" when he says:

"These subtitles are wasted on a worm, if you will pardon the expression, like yourself, who, possibly owing to a defective education, is content to spend life's springtime rolling wooden balls across a lawn."

Butterflies, however, are only lightly ticked off.
"Butterflies loafed languidly in the sunshine"
— "Chester Forgets Himself"

But passing back to snails
I challenge Mr. Marren here and now to tell us when and where Mr. Wodehouse said that he thought snails dull. I think that Mr. Marren has confused a cow with a snail, and if so, I would invite him to place himself under the foot of each, have each ramble upon his spine—and report the difference in sensation.

But, since I am not a writer writing in a Trusted Source, I might know even less than I think I know, and thus, be spreading another inaccuracy. If so, and if Wodehouse did say somewhere that snails are dull, lack audience appeal and the rest of that, may I be damned, but not as much as Mr. Wodehouse, who disappoints me so much that I hope he rots in the hell where authors suffer who have disappointed their readership with details of their private thoughts (which should never have been revealed). What an ingrate! If he really said that snails are dull, then he's like those authors who would be nothing without their editors but consider themselves geniuses. For Wodehouse without snails is like Chandler minus dames.

One can only surmise what an author really thinks
(or rather, one used to only be able to surmise. Nowadays authors tell us so much of what they think, that their stories and novels have waning audience appeal, but Wodehouse died before this trend) so I'm guessing here, but willing to bet that Wodehouse was forced to write about worms in a new respectful tone after a nightmare he had in which a worm possesses the cunning of Professor Moriarty. In "High Stakes", golfers are challenged by worm-casts.

a final note: Although I have raised eyebrows over Peter Marren's bit of Wodehouse/Snails "What he thought" celeb snippet, snails, bugs, and other invertebrates would highly approve his article in general. He isn't bored by them, nor does he think we should be. So do read "The weird world of the bug". It's fun. That he mixes up bugs with snails and others is something that they might take up with him privately.

infinity plus lives again!

2010-12-09T17:49:00.005+10:30

The infinity plus ebook imprint has just launched, with six new titles:

The Angels of Life and Death by Eric Brown, a new collection of short fiction
The collected short fiction of Keith Brooke, in five volumes (Liberty Spin, Embrace, Faking It, Segue and Memesis), with two original stories and specially written afterwords for each story
Covers for the first six books - by Dominic Harman and Debbie Nicholson

Each book is available in the Kindle ebook format, priced $3.44 / £2.18
(Kindle ebooks can also be read on PCs, Macs, smart phones and other devices)

Plans
Many. Look for more titles, formats, and authors to come . . .

But what is infinity plus ?

a science fiction, fantasy and horror showcase that ran from 1997 to 2007 and remains online as an archive
The site holds more than 2.1 million words of fiction, 1000 book reviews and 100 interviews.
There have been three infinity plus print anthologies.
Authors featured on the site include Stephen Baxter, Mary Gentle, Peter F Hamilton, Gwyneth Jones, Vonda N McIntyre, Michael Moorcock, Kim Stanley Robinson, Lucius Shepard, Michael Swanwick, Jack Vance, Connie Willis and Gene Wolfe (me too).

The icky-icky, squishy-slimey, flying kung-fu circus

2010-12-02T16:04:00.019+10:30

At no other circus will the ringleader announce: "A snail would be stiff competition."

Wanderin' Weeta runs a dangerous blog that could be called "Charybdis". See, for instance, Yes, I talk to birds.

So it's only to be expected that, as host this month of my favourite circus, she has collected sundry incredible acts of weirdness, beauty and fun, including a hopping entomologist.

And the supporting acts she's dragged in could bring yet more tears to your eyes.

A poet who misses the finest things in life!
Deprived royalty!
And Art? KO'd by the squishy-slimies.

Go to the Circus! And be, as she says:

Happier than Kings, at the Circus of the Spineless #57

At the Crane Flies' Thanksgiving Congress

2010-12-01T18:40:00.005+10:30

"And now let us give thanks to our Creator,
blessed be Gary Larson's name."

The thinking person's tonic

2010-12-01T06:48:00.013+10:30

Private communication is precious, and like books with pages you can smell and leave fingerprints on, not as much appreciated for its worth as it should be. The most important quality of private communication is the light. Honesty between two people lights lives more than any public communication can. Of course, without confidentiality there can be no honesty. In the past year especially, I've been struck by the number of people who have told me privately, how unhappy they are.

One said to me,

"I keep looking at the [X.... X....es] & the [Y.... Y.....s], in their million-dollar homes, & I despair."

Now, that lightened my life. One person less to communicate with. I have no sympathy for this wasted sensibility, not to mention brain cell activity.

But these words below, from someone else entirely, stunned me because they came from someone I'll call ∞, who I admire probably more than anyone else—and who I, in my ignorance and thoughtlessness, never imagined as unhappy. ∞ is living proof that wisdom and age have no relationship. ∞ reminds me of another brilliant mind and great heart I admire greatly. They live in old ambassador, a real ambassador who I thought for several days when I saw him shuffling down the halls, shoulders bowed, head down, was a janitor with a bad back. That was before he got up and spoke. He could have possibly written the letter from ∞, but he didn't. ∞ could be his grandson.

I'm printing part of it here, regarding the confidentiality of ∞ as sacred. And I'm printing my reply, revealing more personal stuff than I feel comfortable with—in the hopes that our private communication will help someone else. Not someone who wants to be famous or rich. They're human pollution. No, this is for the someones who are more likely to be envious of someone else's experiences exploring the mind and world, for the someones who try to be able to think more clearly. The someones who are unhappy because their own strivings to learn, to communicate, fall so short of their ideals. The someones who are barraged constantly with the "goal" that we're all supposed to have: Happiness—and thereby, lose confidence because they aren't striving for that at all.

"I feel as though I should explain fully why I've barely picked up a pen until recently. Only since this summer have I become interested in writing again - I spent much of 2008-2009 in a longish period of melancholia and self-doubt during which I lost nearly all interest and confidence in myself as a writer."

Dear ∞,
I must reply immediately to what you say about melancholia, and your feelings of self-doubt. I wish you'd let me know about this, for I had no idea. Indeed, if I think of a single person who I have found most inspirational, it is you. You're both incredibly thoughtful, intelligent, and talented. And you have continuously surprised me by your lack of egomaniacal and I-want-to-be-famous thoughts, especially when contrasted with your altruism and the extreme talents and capabilities you possess. You struck me from the first time I saw your writing on that bulletin board, as an exceptional human being. Part of the unwanted innards that comes with that exceptionalism is, unfortunately, self-doubt even unto self-hating, melancholy (I'm so glad you didn't call it 'depression', the mislabeling that really means in our business-oriented world: prescribe and medicate). I have been almost wanting to write about this sort of thing in public, but haven't for a number of reasons. But the fact is, there is a huge pressure put upon everyone in 'modern' society, to be 'happy'. Indeed, happiness is touted as the goal of life. Studies show that religious people are happiest. Of course they are! Not questioning anything, swallowing dogma, and being told that you are right and all you have to do is follow, is great for making someone free of doubt, especially if doubt is decreed as bad. This kind of people keep doubt-free by going out and shoving dogma down other people's throats, kind of like the way Ponzi-schemes work, or chain letters. Don't ever stop. Don't ever get out of it, and everything'll be sweet. It's soma under a different name.

But the fact that you picked science--questioning, thinking, not accepting any dogma. The fact that you are deeply interested in the world at large, in all its conflicting reality and confusing manifestations of conundrums. These facts don't add up to you being a happy, dull, boring and useless, or--as many religious people are, downright destructive--person.

You are creative and questioning in your bones. You deeply feel. You have an ability and wish to get in other people's shoes, even when they hurt. You want to contribute something of yourself that is useful, not only to the world theoretically, but to people in real flesh. These abilities and characteristics and ways of life that add up to YOU are not going to give you a happy life, but they could give you a very fulfilling life. You will always, if you stay true to who you are, have times that come upon you that are black as the pit below deepest Pitsville. You won't think that there is any way out, but there is, and you will find yourself out of there again, and somehow invigorated and creative again. Sometimes you need to find that others think of you quite differently than you view yourself. Even when you want to hide away, you are being thought of, though you probably don't know it.

We live in an extremely tough time for a person who really thinks, who isn't just just a reactor. You are way too intelligent and creative and thoughtful to find the public sphere electronically speaking, supportive and helpful to you as a person. You could find that it makes you feel insecure, that it makes you feel like a failure. That you think you are irrelevant. That is because the public sphere of talk is peopled by extroverts who find thoughtfulness a detraction. They couldn't think if they wanted to, most of them. And the ones that do, don't. So if this has anything to do with your feelings, I hope this gives some perspective.

As to [the venue you submitted a manuscript to {well argued, witty, unique, and formatted to perfection of course--I know because I read it]}, after their invitation to you personally to submit, to which they never replied], damn. One of the worst aspects of life today is the casual rudeness. You put a lot of thought and viscera into something, only to be discounted, not even considered. Just not communicated with at all, even after initial enthusiasm. This can lead to severe depression. I say this from a great deal of personal experience, as everything else I've said here is, too. The only thing to do is to chalk it up to people who are less than you, and move on.

I hope I can give you some confidence that you surely deserve. You weren't specific with anything and I'm not asking you to be, as I don't want to pry. But I can tell you that I have suffered from what you are talking about, for longer than you've been alive. I go up and down with it, yet I would rather be this way than be a happy ignorant bible basher or some idiot that believes John Boehner when he says, "America has the best health care in the world". I'd rather have angst. … Remember always that melancholia is a thinking person's tonic. It tastes bad, but it works.

The spineless, the law, and the gutless

2010-11-30T17:21:00.006+10:30

Recommended, back to back:

The hermit's haiku by Budak
Eviction Notice or, Even hermits have lawyers by Wanderin' Weeta
Dear New Scientist, Are you missing a backbone? by Greg Fish

A story about medlars, now online

2010-11-30T14:13:00.014+10:30

Maybe this blog has finally bletted. After some years, the medlars especially are at last getting the kind of delicious interest they've always secretly craved. And from such quality stock!

People like Catherine Moran, that temptress at Shropshire Prune (Don't just post an announcement on your new blog saying that you will soon post. I'm looking forward to what you say!) Then there's Stephen Read of the Reads, Nurserymen since 1841. Even his twitter page is full of such good stuff, now busy with thoughts of quince and medlar.

And who started all this? I'm not sure, but it might have been Nick Mann at Habitat Aid, the purpose of which is something I feel so strongly about that I fear I can be a bore. Nick isn't. As he says, "Help save native habitats and promote biodiversity in the UK" and then shows how beautiful diversity is. Even if you're like me and can't buy any imported plants (I'd be inviting aliens, an illegal and reviled act that I wrote about recently in my story "Gnawer of the Moon Seeks Summit of Paradise"), you can support the efforts of Habitat Aid and its charity partners, in other ways. As a knife fiend, I want to own that Japanese Hori Hori knife so much, I can feel my fingers close on the handle. Or just steal pleasure from Habitat Aid's many beautiful photographs. I especially like the scene of the harvest mouse eating berries. So many would cry, "Warfarin!"

To thank everyone, I've just reprinted a story for your pleasure, not to mention the pleasure of medlars in both hemispheres.

Valley of the Sugars of Salt

NOTE: I'm assuming all of you have already enjoyed Alys Fowler's article titled simply Medlars in Saturday's Guardian. I urge people who haven't had the pleasure, to dig in, even though I disagree with the Marmite analogy. In our modern world of fruit grown for as much colour and as little taste as possible, so as to be inoffensive, the only people likely to meet medlars are adults who are also either already bletted or fighting dentist and cosmetician, to stop their noble rot. In this mutual state of maturity, the adult can find the alcoholic fruit as sensually pleasurable as a drink that every child knows for sure, is stinky poison. But who do you know who has first met Marmite as an adult, and not rolled the lip? I think one has to be born with a Marmite-clogged spoon near the mouth.

It's upside down, so like history in a blog, the last is first

2010-11-29T12:19:00.008+10:30

Click on these to see the details in all their glory.

Another less mysterious view is on a site I'm experimenting with:
"My Shot" in National Geographic. I love the philosophy about photography that National Geographic states in its invitation to submit photographs:

"I encourage you to submit photographs that are real. The world is already full of visual artifice, and we aren't running Your Shot to add to it. We want to see the world through your eyes, not the tools of Photoshop. Please do not digitally enhance or alter your photographs (beyond the basics needed to achieve realistic color balance and sharpness). If you have digitally added or removed anything, please don't submit the shot."

Great idea, but I don't know if My Shot is just Time Waster. I have found that the priority that National Geographic places on loading the video ads first, takes up so much time that the page says "Done" with no content loading at all, except ads. Maybe it's just my satellite connection, but a pox on these unblockable ads that are costly, too, and the priority that they take. If you try this site and find that this happens to you, my apologies for wasting your time. If you successfully see my experiment of 7 pictures in my "gallery" there, and they bore you, then er, uh, oops.