The thinking person's tonic

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 …

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."

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

If I did SF covers:

Under a mushroom and that port wine birthmark

"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

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

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

The Courier's New Bicycle - Should go far

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