Posts
.
From Ghoulies and Ghosties, Long-Leggitie Beasties . . .
(Part 23)
(Part 23)
The pale man raised his blind face to stare up into infinity.
(Continued tomorrow.)
And my commentary . . .
(Continued tomorrow.)
And my commentary . . .
The creature is eyeless, remember. When you're trying for an eerie effect, it's usually best to write simply and hint at things you cannot say.
You can read all of the story to date here.
And because it's Nobel Prize Season . . .
Once again, I have inexplicably been passed up for the Nobel Prize. So, in the spirit of the season, I'm reprinting my acceptance speech, which originally appeared on SCIFI.COM. Some of the cultural references are a bit dated. But I believe the original spirit shines through.
My Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
(Presented Here Against the Unlikely Chance I Never Get to
Deliver It)
It’s about time!
You lousy bastards should have given this to me decades ago,
and you fucking well know it. Look
at the morons and retards you have given it to. Okay, so Albert Einstein, personal hygiene aside, wasn’t a
total loser. But Niels Bohr,
Desmond Tutu, Ilya Prigogine, the Dalai Lama? You’d think this award was being given for having a funny
name! And whoever decided it would
be a cute joke to give the prize in literature to the likes of Thomas Mann,
Anatole France, and Selma Lagerlof obviously never bothered trying to read
those boring old windbags. To say
nothing of that self-promoting fraud, Mother Theresa!
I could go on, but I think my point is made.
The Nobel Prize was created by Alfred Nobel, who was – I
trust I’m not hurting anybody’s feelings here – a neurotic recluse and a
mass-murdering Swede. So, when one
considers the source, I really shouldn’t be surprised that you only gave me the
one. There are five, you
know. (I don’t count the Economics
thingie as a real Nobel, and neither should you.) It’s not as if the single
greatest Writer/Peacemaker [note to self: scratch out whichever category these
idiots neglect to honor me in] the world has ever known couldn’t be adept in
chemistry and physics and medicine as well. I assure you I could.
Not that I have, granted.
I’ve been busy. But surely
intentions should count for something.
Oh, and a word about the venue. Stockholm?? In
December??? No wonder your bikini
team never showed up.
So here’s what I propose: Vegas, obviously, for the
climate. Ditch the king – nice
guy, but no Robin Williams. For
the MC, rather than doing the safe thing with Madonna or J-Lo, go visionary
with the Osborne Family. Can you
picture them wandering aimlessly about the stage? Hilarious.
Maybe we can even convince Ozzie to bite the head off a (fake) bat.
To get television coverage in the major markets, you’re
going to need music – Guns ‘n’ Roses, Aerosmith, maybe even get the Stones out
of retirement and back in spandex again.
Back ‘em up with a few flash-pots and some fly-girl dancers. Filmed testimonials from Michael
Jackson and the Simpsons.
Choreography from The Producers.
A line of Elvis impersonators.
Dignified and elegant, that’s the key. Keep the wire-work to a minimum.
I get shivers just thinking about it.
Now I realize that these suggestions might seem startling to
some. But that’s why I’m up here
and you’re down there – because I’m a genius and you’re not. So shut up and think it over.
Meanwhile, I accept this Award with a modesty so profound
that pissants like you cannot even begin to comprehend it.
Thank you.
Copyright 2002 by Michael Swanwick and SCIFI.COM, where it originally appeared.
*
6 comments:
[sigh] Some day, there will be a decent English translation of Selma Lagerlof's The Adventures of Nils. I guarantee you, you'd love it, and will never be able to view a flock of geese flying overhead the same way again.
--Mario
If I were really looking to bash the Nobels, I'd've chosen a different set of recipients to do it with. Their record is far from perfect.
I seem to recall that Nils was written at the urging of a ministry in the Swedish government, to familiarize students with their nation's geography. It would be interesting to reread the book and then spend a month retracing the journey.
Oh, I recognized the nature of your acceptance speech -- but that didn't mean you'd actually read Nils.
Lagerlof has the reputation, I suspect, based on that translation. I grew up with the Dutch translation and, to this day, when a skein of ducks flies overhead, I call out to them: Here am I -- where are you?
If it makes you feel any better, you and Mo Yan both enjoy positions of great prestige in my personal (unranked) list of favorite authors.
Unranked lists are good.
It's maddening, sometimes, to reflect on how much I miss out on, being monolingual. It would be a fine thing to read Chinese, just for the poems of Du Fu and Li Bai.
I'd say, blithely, "It's never too late to learn!", but ... frankly, four years of Japanese beginning after you're 50 teaches you, first of all, that it's a bit late to start a new language at that age. [sigh] No regrets. But also almost no Japanese left a few years after my last lesson, either. Chinese wouldn't be any easier, especially given you first have to figure out which Chinese.
Post a Comment