Garbo SPEAKS!

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Okay, not Garbo.  Just me.  But a podcast interview with me has been posted on The Agony Column.  And it seems like this is an appropriate place to mention it.

"Tolkien rang me like a bell," I say.  And "It was as if God had played a practical joke on me."  And "It's our job to take this inherited wealth [of ideas] and add to it, rather than to sit here clipping idea coupons and living off the interest of our betters."  And "When I came into the field in 1980, almost every important science fiction writer who had ever lived was still alive."  And many other witty and interesting things which, having skimmed through part of the interview to find the above, I don't need to find and copy down.

"What a clever-boots you are," Marianne would remark.  Gently keeping my ego under control being one of her regular kindnesses in our marriage.

You can find the interview here.

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In the Midst of Death . . .

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I'll return to blogging about Science, Literature, and Me in just a day or two.  But for now I must balance the recent posts of my thoughts attending funerals with one of a perfectly happy event.

Pictured above is Natalia Lucia Ma, held by her father, my nephew, Richard.  Natalia is my great-niece.  On Saturday she was christened in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.

The photo doesn't do Richard justice.  He's an extraordinarily handsome man, just as his wife Lucy is extraordinarily beautiful.  (Am I jealous?  Not at all.  I look at my own marriage and think, "One out of  two ain't bad."  Particularly since I get to look at the beautiful half.)  He'd been posing for photos for rather a long time when I took this snapshot.  But it does begin to touch upon what a lovely young woman Natalia is. And that calm-and-in-control look?  It's only the tip of the iceberg.  Through several noisy hours in a restaurant, a baptism ceremony that an infant could only find baffling, and a farewell sendoff back at the restaurant again, she was as sweet as a saint.

When she's fifteen and she's done something to send her parents into a rage, I'm going to show up on the doorstep and say, "Remember the christening?  You owe her one."


And, remembering a departed friend . . .

Because I was at the christening, I could not attend the memorial service for Marion Roberts in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. Marion was the mother of my friend Gail and one of those rare people of the generation above oneself whom you could get to know as people and become friends with.  She had that peppery New England sense of humor that could cut down pretension and false sentiment with a single scornful word.  I liked her a lot.

Marion worked as a church secretary and belonged to an informal group of Mattapoisett church secretaries who met once a month for lunch.  Gail knew me when I was the secretary to Tabernacle Church in West Philadelphia, and used to regale her with tales of her friend, the long-haired, male, atheist, science fiction writer church secretary.  For a time Marion was toying with the idea of inviting me to come and speak to her group, but she gave up on the idea because there was no money to pay my travel expenses.

I've always regretted she didn't ask.  I would have driven up and spoken for nothing, just so I could tell a meeting of my peers how privileged I felt to be a part of the sisterhood of church secretaries.

And now she's gone.  The world has one fewer smart, strong, and sassy women.  To which I can only say: Damn.  At least I knew her when she was here.

Goodbye, Marion.  We'll have that meeting of church secretaries yet.  Even if you have you have to have me brought up north for the event.

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In the Midst of Life . . .

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I took a jacket out of the closet the other day because I needed something dark for a family funeral service.  Folded up in an interior pocket I found a perfectly appropriate tie for the occasion -- dark red with black highlights.  Somber and yet hopeful.  And also a rectangle of paper.  Care to guess what it was?

You got it,  It was a memorial card from an earlier funeral service.

I'm back from this week's funeral and of course it got me to thinking about mortality and youth and age and similar topics.  I'm not quite old (in a few months I turn sixty and then I'll be old), but very briefly I was tempted to blog my very best advice to young people:  Kids!  Go to all the weddings you can now when you're young and being invited -- you'll be glad you did when you're my age and going to funerals.

But then I went to the service.

Marianne's Aunt Helen was one of ten children.  She died at age 91, leaving behind two surviving sisters.  So she'd outlived all of her childhood friends and most of her family.  Attendance at the cemetery was sparse.  But there were three generations present:  Survivors of her cohort, a solid representation of my generation, and one adult from my son's generation.

The reason there was only one person from the third generation was that the majority of them are newly launched upon their lives and scattered across the continent.  They don't have the freedom to blow off work for a few day in order to attend a great-aunt's funeral.

So, late in the day perhaps, I realized that what I and others of my generation are doing is showing up at all these funerals and representing the family, so that the young people who don't have the free time/ family days/time-and-money to come to all the memorial services they would like to, don't have to attend.  We're here for them.

We've got your back.

I mention this not so that you younger people will feel guilty.  Exactly the opposite.  My being there for you makes this a more positive event.  When you find yourself at my age and  going to funeral after funeral, remember this post.

Remember that you're doing this for the young people.  You'll feel better, knowing it.

Honest.

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Bike Race Party

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Ah, 1925!  That was the year that Marianne and I held the first Bike Race Party in our home in Roxborough.  If memory serves me correctly, mastodons still roamed the earth and saber-tooth tigers were a big problem in Indiana that year.  We were particularly prescient in naming our party considering that the big bicycle races through Philadelphia and up the Manayunk Wall were over fifty years in our future.

But that's the science fiction business.  Always looking ahead.

We had an extremely pleasant time yesterday with our friends lazing about in the back yard in the shade of the traditional Tokyo men's suits awning, eating barbecue and drinking soda, beer, wine, whatever.  That pleasant lack of ambition that a good summer party engenders lasted through the day and late into the day following.  It was, in fact, only a few minutes ago that I remembered that I still had to blog.

May your summer be equally unambitious!

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George Scithers in Arlington.

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George Scithers's ashes were buried in Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday, June 2, only two days after Memorial Day.  George was a West Point graduate and served in the Signal Corps for 21 years.  He was in the Korean War, where half the members of his graduating class died.  He served his country honorably and well.

Marianne and I were present, along with Tom Purdom, Darrell Schweitzer, John Betancourt, and many other representatives of the science fiction community, to see George off.  His relatives were a little startled by how many of us there were . . .  Apparently they had no idea how important a figure he was in science fiction.

If there's one thing the military knows how to do, it's honor their dead.  There was a military ceremony with a 21-gun salute and a color guard who formally folded the flag and gave it to George's life companion Larry.  Then the box containing George's ashes was carried to the site of his grave where a chaplain performed the religious ceremony.

All the stones at Arlington are identical.  There's space for the symbol for your religion if you have one, years of birth and death, rank, and the names of any wars served in.  Otherwise, everyone is treated exactly the same.  It seems a strangely fit way to mark this solemn transition.

Now George is a citizen in the democracy of death.



And on the same subject . . .

While we were mingling and talking beforehand,  Sandy Meschkow reminisced about how decades before George had come back from the funeral of John W. Campbell and said that it would almost be worth dying to have Isaac Asimov read the 23rd psalm at your funeral.

Well, that didn't happen, of course.  So I thought I'd place it here as a sort of silent prayer, for all those who would have liked to attend the ceremony but could not.

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul:

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: For thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;

Thou annointest my head with oil; My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

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The Literalization of Hieronymus Bosh (Part II)

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Here's a question any number of people have asked:  How much is one of those bottled stories actually worth?


On a literal level, of course, they're priceless.  I never sell them, only give them away -- to particular friends on special occasions, and to worthy charities.  But of course in this world everything has a price, and that price is often determinable.


The most recent unique-story-in-a-bottle was put up at auction this past weekend at ConQuest to benefit AboutSF, which is (I cut-and-paste here) "a resource center for speculative literature, science fiction, and education that also coordinates volunteer efforts throughout the speculative fiction field."  A laudable purpose and one to be encouraged.


After what was apparently heated bidding, the bottle went for $350.  Which helped the convention raise over $2,600 for the cause.  Pretty darned good for a con with slightly fewer than 600 people attending.




And I'm still on the road . . .


This post was canned just before I left yesterday.  But I'll be home soon.


Above:  Once again, the noble Shadowfax defending his dragon-hoard.  Shadow hasn't been feeling well lately.  We'll see what the vet says.

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The New Mount Rushmore

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Why would anybody fly halfway across the country to attend a convention when for no effort at all he or she could shelter in place and write a couple more pages of the next story or novel, you ask?

Ouch!  Touche!  You have unquestionably drawn blood.  But I have a parry and riposte worth any number of your thrusts.  Look up above.  There we are, caught in a quiet moment at ConQuest, the Four Horsemen of the Literary Apocalypse:  Howard Waldrop, Melinda Snodgrass, George R. R. Martin, and Your Very Humble Correspondent, posing for whichever mountains happen to be in need of our stony portraits.

Ordinarily and as you know, I am the humblest of men.  But when I'm in the company of my literary equals, it's hard to tamp down the quite justifiable arrogance.  We are the people who write your literature.  We are the ones who create your culture.  Should you have the good fortune to live to be a thousand (and I hope you do), you will brag to your descendants that you lived in the age of Waldrop, Snodgrass, Martin and Swanwick.

Is Everest still unclaimed?


And I'm on the road again . . .

More when I know it.


Above:  Photo by Terry England.  Thanks, Terry!

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