My Day at the Poll

personby Madeleine Robins
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In an pre-emptive attempt to keep myself busy on Election Day, I volunteered as a poll worker.  10/10 would totally do again. It was not only a way to keep myself from doom scrolling all day yesterday, but I met some good neighbors, and spent the day supporting, in a tiny small way, Democracy. As I write this (on Tuesday night before falling into bed–I reported to the Poll for setup at 6am, and got home at about 9:30) I know nothing much about how the election went.

What I do know is that–at least in California, although I have no reason to believe it’s vastly different anywhere else–election fraud would be very hard to pull off. The number of cross-checks at every step, from who is voting to what happens to the ballots (in California they are paper ballots that are tallied by electronic scanners–but the ballots themselves are preserved under lock and key) to the number crunching–is considerable. The people I worked with were diligent–both about doing the work and about not talking about the election. We had a lot of fun (there is a lot of downtime) but we all took the work seriously. I come to the conclusion that some of the people who froth at the mouth about election security have no real idea of how modern elections work. If I ran the Zoo, I might consider a policy where everyone has to work at a poll once in their lives–just to inject a little reality into their worldview.

At my polling place the number of people who voted with ballots on site was fairly small; most of the people who came by were dropping off their vote-by-mail ballots the day of. This makes sense in San Francisco, where the ballots were four pages long (including two double-sided pages of propositions on the state and city level) and required a cheat sheet or an extraordinary memory.There were the ballots that had been sent well in advance (VBMR, in poll roster speak, for “Voted By Mail-Received”). So our relatively small precinct overwhelmingly seemed to prefer filling out their ballot before the Day itself. I was one of them (since I didn’t know where I would be working, I opted to vote several weeks ago).

There were a lot of children–my neighborhood has a lot of kids in it, and it seemed like every parent wanted to bring their kids to expose them to the Civic Virtue that is voting. Since I did the same thing with my kids, I totally endorse this. We gave out I Voted stickers to a lot of children (but I note that almost all the adults who voted or dropped off ballots asked for their stickers too, with an almost childlike glee).

There were some… odd moments. Like the very nice older guy who announced to us that he was voting for “Trump of course”–we can’t and won’t ask, but he seemed to think it was a given. Because his eyesight was poor, he asked for assistance in completing his ballot, which he was given. Then his foreign-born wife came in; he reminded her that she was voting for Trump too, and while he didn’t exactly hang over her he made it pretty clear what the expectation was. She too asked for assistance in filling out the ballot, which she received. Both my co-worker and I were a little uncomfortable, but the husband’s behavior didn’t rise to the level of interference, and we’re bound by all sorts of rules about what we can do.

There was a guy down the street from the building (we were in the library–very plush surroundings when many San Francisco polling places are in neighborhood garages) for about an hour wearing a HARRIS WALZ t-shirt–but not accosting anyone. There are strict rules about how near to a polling place campaign materials of any sort can be.

At eight o’clock when the polls closed, we swung into action. Each of us had tasks: two people to count the vote-by-mail and provisional ballots, two people to print out the tally from the electronic scanner (a copy of the tally is posted outside the polling place ASAP) and get the cast ballots ready. All the materials are handed over to the Sheriff (including the SD card from the scanner) in sealed containers, and the numbers on the seals are recorded. All of the materials that had been put to use during the day were folded up and put into order so that the Department of Elections minions can pick them up.

A note about those Minions: when we got to the poll this morning there were boxes and bags of materials–ballots, provisional ballot envelopes, privacy folders, EDU ballots (for non-citizens with children under the age of 18 who are–in California–permitted to vote in school board elections only), and so much other stuff. Including those seals (yellow for beginning of the day, blue for the end of the day) which must be accounted for–every time we broke a seal it went into the Inspector’s folder–the inspector is like the team lead. There are signs of various sorts, and voting desks, and the accessible ballot machine (which can be used by anyone, but allows you to vote with a touch screen and various assistive devices) as well as the electronic scanner. And pens and hand sanitizer and masks and posters and … so much stuff. All meticulously organized and stored until the poll workers deploy them at the start of the day. At one point, as I do, I got lost in the image of all of the DoE Minions (as I thought of them). They do this for every precinct in the city, county, and very likely the state. There was nothing missing that we needed. It was thoughtfully and thoroughly done.

And now I am home, and very ready for my bed. And there are people for whom the job is only beginning, as they take in the tallies and the used ballots (and the unused ballots, which must be as carefully accounted for as those that are used, and those that are “spoiled” and voided).

There are a lot of moving parts to Democracy. It’s kind of awesome. As awful and contentious as this election season has been, seeing these parts up close gave me hope. Now, I’m going to bed.

ETA: The next morning. The national results are emphatically not what I wanted. But I stand by my day at the Poll and what I took from it. And I’m going to hang on as hard as hell to that.

When Events Collide

personby Gillian Polack
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This is the year of many confluences. I want to note just three, because those earlier in the year were more confluences of grief and do not need revisiting.

The first one is tomorrow, that is to say, November 5.

First, there is the US election. I am hoping that the US turns out and votes in massive numbers and that the outcome is one of the better ones. This is not an easy election and I’m very glad I don’t have to deal with some of the issues everyone’s handling right now. I hope things improve and that clever voting opens the door to US lives being significantly better. I also hope that the idiots learn to listen and understand what rampant fools they can be, but this is probably a pipe dream.

The election is, obviously, the biggest thing tomorrow. The second biggest is a rather fraught historical memory. Australia mostly doesn’t celebrate Guy Fawkes Night any more, but I found out yesterday that New Zealand does. We never burned figures, even when we had bonfires and fireworks and for this I am so very grateful. I have to admit that it’s kinda appropriate that there is a history memory on the same day that the US is busy creating its own history memory.

The third thing tomorrow is a race. Not the same type of race as the US one, but a horse race. Victoria (the Australian state, not the city a long way from me) gets a public holiday and most of Australia stops to watch. Tomorrow I won’t, because the friends I usually drink with (because it’s a drinking festival, really) are busy and I have a lot to do and…

I feel as if I’m betraying my childhood with no race and no fireworks, but at least I don’t have to worry about supporting something that really is not kind to horses or an historical event that, in the way it’s celebrated, isn’t that kind to Catholics.

That’s tomorrow’s confluence: the election, Bonfire Night, and the Melbourne Cup.

The next one is on November 11. I might leave it until next week and tell you about it then. Let me just say that only one of the events that collide is celebrated in the US and the UK. Watch this space…

The other collision is a bit longer. December 25 is Christmas this year (as it always is) and, for a wonder, it’s also the start of Chanukah, thanks to a handy leap month last Jewish year. New Year is also Chanukah. So are all the days between the two. I feel it’s a bit of a cheat to call this a confluence, but it’s a fun one because it’s going to tangle all the folks who were finally accepting that Chanukah and Christmas are not on the same dates. The Christian calendar is solar and fixed to the sun. The Jewish calendar is lunar/solar, that is fixed to the moon with solar adjustments. This explains the leap month – the adjustments are a bit bigger because, really, the Moon and the Sun don’t talk to each other and make everything work in harmony.

The shape of the year gives you something to think about if you really, really don’t want to spend more thoughts on the election. The fact that I’m supposed to be frying food in midsummer (for Chanukah) is another useful distraction.

Good luck with your Tuesday confluence!

Embracing the Contradictions

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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In November of 2020, right around the US election, Master Li Junfeng, with whom I studied Sheng Zhen (a practice related to Qigong) while in Austin, offered an online meditation workshop for – if I remember right – 17 days in a row.

I signed up, even though it was at 6 am Pacific Time, since Master Li was in China and they were trying to set it for as reasonable as possible a time for people all over the world. And I made every class.

It was a very good decision, despite the fact that getting up to do something at 6 am is not one of my favorite activities. I sailed through all the election nail-biting and even lessened my pandemic anxiety.

I did keep it up for awhile, but since then I haven’t been all that regular with meditation. I’m trying to get back in the habit now. What with the election, the multiple climate-change-caused disasters, and the fact that even with sane people in our government we haven’t even come close to dealing with public health crises – not to mention what all this stress does to my blood pressure – I need to take time to breathe deeply and find my center every day.

I do Tai Chi daily, but I need the meditation as well.

I’m a bit eclectic at the kind of meditation I practice. I’ve picked up some Zen Buddhist techniques over the years. Master Li’s approach comes out of Taoism, I think. Some days I just focus on my breath. Other days I watch the Qi or Ki (depending on whether I’m channeling Chinese or Japanese practices) flowing through my body.

Sometimes I recite this verse that I believe I learned from a book by the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn:

Breathing in, I feel my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Living in the present moment.
This is such a beautiful moment.

And sometimes I try to imagine all the elements of our planet – from the tectonic plates to the oceans to the forests to all the creatures and people – and then go on through the Solar System to the Milky Way to the Universe.

When I do that last version, I remember that I am a part of the universe, and so are all the microbes living inside me as well as everything around me.

I am a tiny speck of the universe and whatever happens or doesn’t happen to me is part of that whole. Continue reading “Embracing the Contradictions”…

Monsters and Books

personby Gillian Polack
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Today I’m dreaming of Jewish monsters. This is the reason: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ranthalix/jewish-monsters-and-magic-trading-cards

I heard about the project because the publisher of The Green Children Help Out is involved in it. There is an increasing number of people who, despite everything that’s going on in the world and all the antisemitism, are enjoying the wild and amazing stories that are part of all the Jewish cultures.

I saw that this weekend at the Virtual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. R Andrea Lobel  was a guest of honour (who has published a story of mine in Other Covenants – sometimes I think the world is a tiny place) and delivered her plenary on Jewish fantasy.

First, she explained something that had me nodding in sad recognition: right now, a lot of Jewish writers are being avoided by publishers, by booksellers, by many people. Jewish writers from all over the world, and Israeli writers regardless of religion or political views. My own income from writing has suffered from this. I’m visible in some places, and in others, it’s as if I never existed… and I’m one of those who have experienced less hate. No book sales, but also no death threats.

Seeing the Jewish monster cards made me smile. Something cool and fun is entering this world despite all the hate. Of course I’ve backed them. I told my friends that they are a combined Chanukah and New Year present for me, myself and I, but the reality is that they are a tool with which I can combat ignorance and hate. I can learn more about Jewish monsters… and also use them to teach writing. I miss teaching, and cards like this would make it enormously fun.

Rabbi Lobel talked about the history of Jewish fantasy (English-language history, for she did not have two hours! The Jewish Fantastic goes back a long, long way.) then she gave examples of some modern writers of Jewish fantasy for the attendees. I think you might be interested in her list. I’ll give it to you as a screenshot.

R A Lobel's list of recent Jewish fantasy writing
Jewish fantastic fiction

The thing is – and this is not a small thing – there are hundreds of works. Not so many in Australia, which is another story, and I am still a bit overwhelmed that I’m on the list along with Jack Dann. This means that 50% of the current Jewish Australian fantasy writers who have published novels and short stories containing Jewish stuff is on this list. I doubt anyone in Australia will even notice. Jewish fantasy writers are not included in Jewish Writers’ festivals in Australia and Jewish writers are currently not very welcome in the literary scene. I notice, however, and it means a great deal. Mostly, it means that I shall not give up on my fiction despite the current problems.

This week’s post is not deep. It’s a small moment of joy in a difficult time.

A Matter of Feet

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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I recently bought new shoes.

Now this in and of itself isn’t monumental news. I don’t buy shoes all the time, but I do get new ones as needed.

What makes this time different is the kind of shoe, though you might not be able to tell the difference just by looking at them.

Black leather Birkenstocks oxfords with white soles

These are lace-up leather shoes, not precisely sneakers but not precisely oxfords either. They’re made by Birkenstock, a well-known brand, though not one I’ve favored over the years.

Here’s the thing: they have a very firm sole – they are not in any way flexible.

It turns out that I need shoes like this, because I not only have bunions, I have very rigid big toes, which is to say arthritis in the toe. There’s even a medical name for that: hallux rigidus.

And according to my physical therapist, shoes with very flexible soles aggravate that big toe, leading to various kinds of problems. Continue reading “A Matter of Feet”…

How Was Your Convention?

personby Madeleine Robins
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The American Falls

I’m sitting in the lobby of the Niagara Falls Sheraton (US side) waiting until it’s time to get a ride to the airport to go home. It’s the tail-end–or perhaps the last sight of the tail-end–of the World Fantasy Convention, which was swell. At least MY convention was swell. But as one of the attendees commented this morning, everyone has their own convention; I can’t speak to anyone else’s.

As with every human endeavor, how we experience an event is colored by what we want out of it, what our individual concerns are, and what happens to us individually. The people planning a convention can be as meticulous in planning as one could want, filling the schedule chock-full of entertaining and informative and cool stuff–but for the individual attendee all that can be eclipsed by any number of things: a friend who ghosted them; a bad knee; the bad dinner; missing someone who is normally there… you know. Human stuff. And it is a Truth, universally acknowledged, that even at a relatively small convention like WFC (which hovers around 1000 registrations) you can run into some people over and over, and miss other people that you know are there, but never find.

Of course, this principle applies to everything: school, workplace, relationships, families (I swear my brother and I had two different families with shared players and specific events, mediated by our ages and genders). It’s not a matter of position, exactly. It’s a matter of what matters to you, how you’re treated, what distracts or focuses you in a given situation.

So how was my convention? I saw many people, some I hadn’t seen in years (including one of my stage-combat teachers and colleagues: it had been 30 years!).  I met cool new people, or people I only know from the realms of the internet. I ate (Indian, Nepali, Italian, and more quotidian fare) and talked and laughed and listened. I visited a foreign land (with Canada within a 15 minute walk across the Rainbow Bridge, how could I not?). But mostly, I talked and listened and laughed and thought about things in new ways, which is really what I go to conventions for. I had beadwork in the Art Show (every time is new–last year my climate change necklaces all sold; this year none of them did) and a gratifying number of pieces went home with new owners.

It’s a huge indulgence, being able to do this: go to Another Place, see friends, and talk about the issues and ideas that writers worry about and gnaw on. I’m very lucky to have the time and the finances and the flexibility to be able to do it at all. But I also spent a good deal of time talking with some people in indie publishing, and now have –maybe not a publishing plan, but enough hard information to be able to put together a publishing plan so that the 4th Sarah Tolerance book can see the light of day, and I can bring out the backlist in a uniform edition. I call that a successful business trip.

Short answer: My Convention was good. Now to go home and start the real work.

Mondayitis

personby Gillian Polack
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Do you ever have a week when you’ve got more to do than you’ll ever fit in and there’s not a lot of time and it’s all the best work, then fun stuff but you don’t feel well and the world world becomes too much so you sit down with a big cup of tea and watch Captain Scarlet? That’s me. Today. I’m not well and I’m busy and it’s all stuff I want to do…

I have until Thursday afternoon to finish the conference presentation. It’s about how I used my ethnohistorical self to devise a perfectly formed lost culture of magic for one of my characters. I get to talk about magic! And history! And my own writing! I’m talking about the cultural contexts of the magic in The Wizardry of Jewish Women. Demons in lemon trees. Home made amulets. That sort of thing. Except that it’s not ‘that sort of thing’ – I created a complex magic system based on the history of magic, specifically, Jewish magic that my character would have inherited. You can trace where her family lived for about 3000 years if you look at the crumbs of magic I left along the path of the novel. I’ve learned a lot more about the history of Jewish magic since then, and could now create more characters with quite different family heritage and give them all equally Jewish magic.

The truth is that I’m not well. I used to simply take time off to get over the illness-hump, because I get them all the time. Right now, though, I’m busy. I’ll be busy until next June. I love being busy, but I’ve not had to handle so much work alongside the illness since pre-COVID. That’s why I’ve been watching Captain Scarlet. I used to learn new ways of dealing with things by taking long walks or by dancing for two hours. I’ve learned that watching certain types of TV gets me that same thinking, the sort that will change my world because it must. What has Captain Scarlet done for me today? I know I shall include a reading in my presentation and that I shall record the reading for Patreon. I shall also give my patrons some of my coolest research photographs this month, which means I don’t have to write the new fiction I have no time for. And I shall write 700 more words tonight and my new book will reach 50,000 words. I have to finish with all the books on my table (about 40) and have them away before I need to use the table for anything but cups of tea, and those 700 words are the first step in this process. They will also free my brain, because I have 3 essays and that paper t write tomorrow.

Another way I deal with illness is by rewards. The days shopping is delivered, I have potential treats, which I cannot open until I have done the essential work. Tomorrow is such a day, and so IO shall write 6,000 words. Captain Scarlet taught me all this, so it must happen… after a cup of tea. One of the difficulties with my illnesses is staying hydrated, so tea comes first, and stretches and the gentle exercise that will get me back the mobility I had until I tried dancing last week.

It will all work, one gentle step at a time. Until I took that time and admitted just how unwell I am this week, I felt as if the world hated me and as if nothing would ever be finished. This is the single biggest reason for admitting things are impossible and for sitting down in front of the television with a big cup of tea. Light watching and big cups of tea help me find the distance I need to handle the otherwise impossible. Wishing life were kinder is not nearly as effective.

Presidential Ambitions

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Back in my pre-teen years, when I first started paying attention to politics, I thought I might want to become the first woman president of the United States.

That was about the time when my parents started encouraging me to consider law school. I remember traveling through Texas on vacation at one point and asking my father who he knew in the county we were in who could help me get elected governor (governor being a stepping stone to the White House).

When I got out of law school, the state representative seat for my parents’ district was open and they wanted me to move back home and run. I thought about it, but in the end decided against it.

While it was a labor-liberal district in those days, I would have had to ignore racism while soliciting the (mostly white) union vote and would also have had to pretend I loved the appalling development going on as Houston continued to sprawl.

Which is to say, if you want to be elected to public office in this or many other countries, you’ve got to compromise on something. And while I’m actually pretty good at working together with other people in good faith to come up with something we can all live with, the kind of compromises that involve my basic values are much harder for me to do.

I am very glad I made that call back then. I was still lurching around, trying to figure out my way in the world. Politics would have been a path, but I don’t think it would have made me happy.

And I don’t want to be President of the United States.

Presidents are the front person, and while they do their best to put people they can work with in key positions, they really have to trust that the people doing the core work are approaching it in a way similar to what they would do in that job.

Also, they inherit decisions made in the past, particularly on foreign policy. A new president has to tread with care around relationships with other countries and their advisors may well be telling them to do things they don’t personally agree with, but don’t see any way to change.

If I were in that job, I would never get a decent night’s sleep because I’d wake up at 3 a.m. every morning second guessing myself or cursing the fact that I had to do something I really didn’t want to do because of a lot of decisions made twenty years ago.

What gets me are all the people who do want to be president. I don’t mean the actual politicians with a shot at the job, the people who have spent their lives in various elected offices and see the chance to advance once again. Those are the people who really like the political life, the ones who don’t wake up second-guessing themselves, who don’t mind asking people for money, who really like political games.

No, I’m thinking about the people who run as third party candidates, not to mention the individuals with no organization who just decide to run. Continue reading “Presidential Ambitions”…

In Praise of Community Music

personby Deborah J. Ross
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Until not that long ago, music was a participant event. Everyone in the village gathered to sing, play handmade instruments, and dance. If you were especially skilled, you received recognition (and maybe a few rounds of free ale or whatever passed for it). I grew up in the era of folk music, where almost everyone I knew had a guitar, banjo, recorder, or equivalent instrument. Maybe a dulcimer, castanets, or lap harp. Sure, we went to concerts, but we made our own music, too. For the last couple of centuries, folks who could afford it had a harpsichord, clavichord, pianoforte, as well as a harp (ref. any Jane Austen novel or film). Composers wrote for their patrons (or their patrons’ families), music simple enough for an amateur to enjoy playing. Even with the shift through recorded media to professional concert music (everything from symphonies to metallica), folks continue to enjoy playing music. Perhaps it’s a bug they catch in high school band or orchestra. Perhaps their moms forced them into piano or clarinet lessons and they found themselves wanting to play long after lessons went by the wayside.

So I’m not at all surprised at the popularity of community music groups. Amateur choral groups, whether associated with religious institutions or not. Recorder ensembles playing Christmas music. Church choirs. Community bands or string ensembles—after all, where else are those band members or not-quite-good-enough-for-professional violinists going to find kindred spirits and have fun?

My husband, a clarinetist, played in a community band comprised of retired musically inclined folks and high school seniors or graduates, plus two for-credit community college bands. The “symphonic band” in particular drew from current students and ordinary folks. I used to love attending these concerts, well within our budget (aka, free). They varied in quality but it was always clear how much fun the musicians were having.

Fast forward through the pandemic and waning interest…to a sign outside one of the tiny churches in our tiny town: “Concert!” Of course, even at the requisite 25 mph, I couldn’t catch the date and time. Then my piano teacher said, “I’m playing the piano solo at the church, you should come.” I came. I sat where I had a good view of her hands. The church held maybe a hundred people, but the acoustics were marvelous. I went back for a second concert, although I had the same problem finding out when the performances were. At last, I found the website for the “Concertino Strings,” showed up for a performance, and had a marvelous time.

The directors, Joanne Tanner and Renata Bratt, did a brilliant job selecting music that was fun to play, within the skill level of their musicians, and delightful to listen to. This last concert included:

  • Don Quixote Suite; A Burlesque, by G. P. Telemann
  • Gigue, by J. Pachelbel (the one written to go with his famous Canon in D)
  • Pachelbel’s Rhapsody, by Katie O’Hara LaBrie

As Renata Bratz pointed out, we have all heard Pachelbel’s Canon in D umpteen times, although few of us have shared the experience of the cellists, who play the same 8 notes over…and over…and over. Maybe that was what LaBrie had in mind when she arranged a delightful blend of Pachelbelian themes in a sprightly modern setting. I came home and looked it up online. You can enjoy it, too!

The next concert is December 11 and 14, featuring Sammartini’s Concerto Grosso “Christmas.”

 

I’m late!

personby Gillian Polack
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I’m late with everything this week. Part of this is because the year is always crazy busy when the last term of everything educational in Australia collides with Jewish holidays. This year is worse because most people are ignoring the Jewish side of things or make snide remarks about Jews. I’m lucky that so far it’s only been snide remarks and veiled bigotry. These remarks become time consuming. They may be harmless, but given the current environment they could also be hiding dangerous bigotry. it’s not entirely safe to be Jewish most places right now. I need to check those remarks out. It’s the sensible thing to do. Earlier this year they led me to a bunch of evidence that one of our major political parties is strongly antisemitic. I keep checking this out, because I really don’t want to believe it and this week I discovered again, that not only am I right, they’re putting forward candidates who don’t hide these views. My local elections (the equivalent of state and council combined) are this Saturday, and I have factored this into how I vote. The party have gone, over the last few years, from having candidates near or at the top of my ballot to being buried deep inside the “Please don’t elect this person” part of it.
Also, I tested my capacity to dance yesterday. I did better than I expected, but I’ve been paying for it ever since. I go back to folk dancing next year, all going well. My teacher wanted me to go back properly now, but there will be issues with joints if I do that. Also, I would be dancing on the Jewish anniversary of the day of the Nova massacre, in a class that has put Israeli folk dances on hold. That would be a lot to handle, I think.
Add all this to work stuff and health stuff and I’m in Red Queen month and running very hard to just keep up.

I hope these are sufficient reasons for being a day and a half late!