The Lantern of Diogenes

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Here's something I'll bet you didn't know about me:  I was an Eagle Scout.  God's own truth.  I earned it, too.  Nobody becomes an Eagle Scout without putting in a lot of hard work and acquiring a lot of useful skills.

So it was a particular pleasure Saturday to attend the Eagle Scout Court of Honor for J. Colin McCormick, the son of a family friend and the second of the McCormick boys to earn that honor.  Congratulations, Colin!

And totally unrelated to the above . . .

Saturday I also wrote stories for a lantern I bought for that purpose recently.  The lantern, pictured above and below, has a paper screen, so I wrote four short-shorts, one for each side, inspired by the lantern itself.  The stories ended up having a common theme:  They were all about women.

Specifically, the stories and their heroines were:  Tinkerbell, Persephone, Lucifera, and Diogenes.

But I hear you thinking doubtfully, Diogenes?  You betcha.  Here, just so you don't have to take my word for it, is the proof:

Diogenes

by Michael Swanwick

            Admit it.  You never could figure out what the deal was with Diogenes.  Carrying a lantern in broad daylight?  Looking for an honest man?  What the fuck?

            Here’s the simple explanation.  Diogenes was a woman.

            Perhaps she was a cross-dresser.  Maybe the historians goofed.  In either case, she was a looker:  Eyes, mouth, breasts, hips, all in the right order and proportions.

            “Why the lantern?” a prospective suitor would say.

            “Because it’s night,” she’d reply.  Or:  “I need it to see in the daylight.”

            And if he agreed with her, she knew he was no good.

            This much is known and no more.  Did Diogenes ever find romance?  Did she die a spinster?  On this both history and philosophy are silent.

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Black Friday

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Things are still quiet here.  Yesterday Marianne and I went to Sean's apartment, where he treated us to a Thanksgiving dinner "that couldn't be beat," as Arlo Guthrie used to put it.  Only in retrospect did the above photo strike me as distinctly Goth.

And this morning, Marianne and I had a small adventure.  We got up hours before our usual time, went to Micro Center with a short but pricey list of loss leaders in hand and stood in line for an hour before the store opened, went in, and bought them all.  Because this is her first year of retirement, Marianne had never done this before.

I did, however, point out to her that the ungodly hour we had to rise in order to get the bargains was exactly the same time as she woke up for her commute to work a year ago.


What does Thanksgiving dinner have to have in order to be Thanksgiving dinner?

Over the years, we've asked this question of dozens of people.  Our answer:

Turkey
stuffing (the proper kind; none of your experimental foodie recipes allowed)
gravy
cranberry sauce (jelly, not whole berry)
mashed potatoes
celery
radishes
sweet potatoes
midget sweet gherkin pickles
creamed onions
rolls (though personally I don't eat any during the meal; I save 'em for leftovers)
pie

The smallest number required is zero, and a surprising number of folks adhere to that.  We've known people who had sushi for Thanksgiving and thought it a perfectly satisfactory holiday meal.  But the upper limit so far belongs to our friend Gail, who's of old New England stock (she's the sixth generation of her family to live in the house she now owns) and had to have something like twenty items, including three forms of cranberry sauce and four types of pie -- and the squash pie had to be cooked in a square pan!

It was only when she was an adult and had to cook the meal herself that Gail realized that the reason the squash pie was cooked in a square pan was that by that point all the round ones had been taken.

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The Mill 'n' Swill at Planet Hollywood

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Monday, I drove to the Big Apple for SFWA's annual Mill 'n' Swill -- the one day a year when writers treat editors and publishers to free drinks.  Because the Society of Illustrators raised the price of renting their extremely pleasant and gorgeously-illustrated facilities sky-high, this year the event was held at Planet Hollywood.  So, for reasons of plot and convenience, that's where I ate.

And what sort of a restaurant is Planet Hollywood?  Let's put it this way.  It's the sort of restaurant where all the patrons are out-of-town tourists.  New Yorkers are horrified at the very thought of eating there.

In fact, when quintessential New York sophisticate Ellen Datlow arrived, Gardner asked if she'd ever eaten there before and, after she said no, held out his hand and said, "Pay up, Michael!"

I handed him a nickel and Ellen, mortified, said, "Did you really think I'd eaten here before?"

"No," I said.  "But it's more fun if you bet.  If I'd thought there was a chance in Hell of it, I'd've risked a dollar.  And if I'd really believed it, I'd've bet serious money."

Above, clockwise from left:  Ellen Datlow, Gordon Van Gelder, Richard Bowes, Ricky Kagan, Gardner Dozois, Susan Casper.  A pretty distinguished table of people, actually.


And as long as I'm here . . . 


Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you have a lot to be grateful for.  And if you don't, then I hope the coming year will be kinder to you.

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A Quiet Evening At Home

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Well, Philcon has come and gone.  (Most interesting observation of the weekend, from new writer Anna Kashina:  "In Russian, there is no word for privacy.")  Cory Doctorow was very kind and generous when my reading went five minutes over schedule.  I stayed for his reading, of selections from his not-yet-published novel, for which he spent a month in southern China, doing research, and it sounds like a winner.  Some of the panels went well, others fell flat, and I learned more about the strange field in which I work.  So it was worth attending.

Afterwards, Marianne and I had a few close friends over to the house.  Here are their pictures.

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The Sort Of Evening One Goes To The Theater For

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Last night Marianne and I went to the Curio Theatre Company production of Conor McPherson's The Weir. It's sold as a series of ghost stories in an Irish pub, but really it's about how human contact is all that holds us back from the abyss. And it's the sort of show which is entirely dependent upon the actors. If one of them sucks, the play does too.

The play does not suck

So kudos to Liam Castellen, Josh Hitchens, Paul Kuhn, Eric Scotalti and Jennifer Summerfield for a wonderful night of theater.

The stage designer put the entire thing -- the pub and the audience -- right up on the stage, with seats on three sides and walls around it all. So only 45 people can see each performance. This and some brilliant reviews mean that Saturday's performance, the last, has only three seats available. If Philadelphia is on your radar and you have the day free and you move fast, I heartily recommend it.

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My Philcon Schedule . . . I Think

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Look what I got for my birthday! Two taxidermy cat's-eyes and a coyote tooth, from the one woman on earth who always knows what I want. I love you, Marianne.


And Speaking of Philcon . . .

This has to be some kind of a record. Philcon starts tomorrow and Programming still hasn't notified me as to what I'm scheduled to be on.

However, I just now discovered that they've put the program online, so here's what's probably my schedule. Odd. I was very careful not to agree to be the moderator for anything. Also, I'm not at all sure I'll be able to manage to attend the Microfiction panel. Which is a pity because it looks interesting. I'd be able to wing it,too, which is a plus. Some of the others (that first one, for example) look like they'd benefit from a little prep. But it's a bit late for that now.

Well, I shall simply do my best. If anybody wants to quickly suggest what might be the "core books and concepts for an understanding of the Science Fiction genre," that would be an enormous help.

For the reading, I'll either do "Goblin Lake," if I've been given a half-hour or "The Pearls of Byzantium" if I've been given an hour. The latter I created by taking the first three chapters of my Darger and Surplus novel, revising the ending to make it a stand-alone story, and then cutting it ruthlessly from 16,000 words to slightly less than 10,000. It's a story that may never be published -- and certainly not in this exact form. So if I have an hour, the reading will be unique in the old, unspoiled sense of the word.


Fri 7:00 PM in Plaza III (Three)—A Science Fiction Curriculum For New Comers

Science Fiction authors list the core books and concepts for an understanding of the Science Fiction genre.
Michael J. Walsh (mod), Walter Hunt, Ted Rickles, Gail Z. Martin, Michael Swanwick


Fri 8:00 PM in Plaza II (Two)—Zombie Jamboree

Jane Austen spinning in her grave. The current fascination of all things zombie.
Tony Finan (mod), Michael Swanwick, D.E. Christman, James Chambers, Jonathan Maberry


Sat 1:00 PM in Executive Suite 623—MIchael Swanwick Reading


Sat 8:00 PM in Plaza I (One)—Insert Tab B Into Slot A

The treatment of sex in Science Fiction.
Victoria Janssen (mod), Lawrence M. Schoen, Michael Swanwick, Stephanie Burke, Lee Gilliland


Sat 9:00 PM in Plaza I (One)—The Art Of The Collaboration

What is it like to write with another writer and develop a unique voice which is not that of either partner but something new? Various authors who have collaborated explain how it is done.
Michael Swanwick (mod), Keith R.A. DeCandido, Mike McPhail, Chris Pisano, Brian Koscienski


Sun 12:00 PM in Plaza V (Five)—Why Isn't Science Fiction More International?

We aren't seeing many translations. We aren't seeing many stories from non-English speaking authors. What are we missing?
Michael Swanwick (mod), Darrell Schweitzer, Michael F. Flynn, Phillip Thorne


Sun 2:00 PM in Executive Suite 823—Microfiction: The Next Big Thing?

A number of magazines have opened dedicated to the art of the quick-fic. Pros and cons of flash fiction (under 1,000 words), nanofiction (under 40 words), and Twitter fiction (under 140 characters).
Nathan Lilly (mod), Michael Swanwick, Ef Deal, Dina Leacock, Jared Axelrod


I'll see y'all there! Don't be too shy to say hi.

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The Prisoner of Leonids

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Did anybody else get up at three a. m. to look at the Leonids today? Marianne and I drove out to Valley Forge for the occasion. This was not an affectation . . . it's simply the closest place to Philadelphia where the light pollution is low enough to have a hope of being able to see anything. We didn't see a lot of falling stars, but it was worth it just for the experience of being there.

Which is way more than I can say for the remake of The Prisoner. I'd been wondering why they decided to revive this ultimately-flawed classic of the Cold War era today. Then, seeing it, I was baffled as to why, with such a crisp original to use as a model, they'd made such a limp, plodding, lifeless bowl of oatmeal out of it. (*)

My theory after dozing through either two or eighteen episodes -- I'm not quite sure which -- is that the producers wanted to make the next Lost and, having an option on the old Patrick McGoohan miniseries, decided to use it as a platform.

It makes as much sense as anything in the show is ever likely to.

(*) Ian McKellan gets a free pass from my criticism, though; he's magnificent.

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