Category: Life

Enjoying fandom, online

personby Gillian Polack
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I’m a bit late this week to the Treehouse because my Monday included a science fiction convention in the UK. I was on three panels, and I had such a fine time that I’m reluctant to let it go and get back to my everyday. The amazing thing about this is that, because of the usual health issues, I had to attend long-distance. Hybrid events are changing and with those changes come ever-increased level s of being an actual and real part of the events one is attending via computer.

My hybrid panels meant I was a giant head on a screen, but I was just as much part of the discussion. There was one when I felt a bit on the side, but that wasn’t due to the hybridity, it was due to me trying to be brief for the audience and the other panellists talking at great length. Since, in real life panels (or meat panels, as someone described them over the weekend) I’ve been guilty of exactly this thing, I now feel that the universe is a bit balanced and maybe, next time, we can all talk about the same amount. I was able to talk freely about my research past and present and about my fiction and about all sorts of things that mattered to me. And that talk was part of extended and fascinating discussions with others.

What made the difference, for me, was that the online audience chatted in Discord throughout the panel. I could see what the audience thought if I was able, and I could drop in and chat when my end was quiet. When I was audience in panels, I actually had a better panel experience than face to face because we all made smart remarks and added our own insights and got excited when something clever was said.

If I’d been able to get to Conversation in person, I can see that we would have moved to the bar or tea room after several panels (both the ones I was on and the ones I was audience in), but the Discord aspect gave me some of that. I didn’t make new best friends, but I did meet new and wonderful people and we’re already working on catching up sometime. And I got to spend quality time with old friends. And… it was all at my computer.

The biggest thing is that I’m as well today, the day after the convention, as I was the day before the convention. I so hope that hybrid conventions become the norm and that they are all as clever (or cleverer!) than Conversation, where those of us who are not blessed with abundant good health and the capacity to travel (and the finances to travel, and the time to travel and all the other reasons many of us can’t get to live events) still have an amazing time.

There are four US events (that I know of) that work like this, and I’m already signed up for three of them this year. Those committees who put in that extra work to make conferences work for as many of us as possible are amazing. Every time I emerge from someone online that leaves me feeling as if the world is friendly and welcoming and that isolation is relative. This weekend I feel all that, but that my work is appreciated, as well.

I am raising my cup of tea right now to all those who make hybrid conventions possible, but particularly to the amazing group who ran Conversation in Birmingham, this weekend.

If Sleeping Beauty Were Jewish

personby Gillian Polack
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I’m working on fairy tale retellings right now, and preparing for Pesach (Passover) and getting ready for Eastercon (the UK’s national science fiction convention which is hybrid, is called Conversation this year and has a spectacular programme) and so time to do things is rare and fleeting. Fortunately, I have insomnia tonight, so spent two hours in bed, thinking. I got out of bed because I remembered I needed to write something for all of you, here. Insomnia doesn’t lead to great amounts of intellectual capacity, so it was very lucky I remembered a little story I wrote many years ago. It explains why I have insomnia… and is a fairy tale retelling about Passover. I’ve given you a link to the original, just because.

If I can fit everything together neatly through something I wrote so very long ago … maybe I will be able to sleep? Also, my cleaning this year is less impossible this year because when my refrigerator died, it took a lot of the food I needed to finish with it. Such unexpected synchronicity.

Before I give you the story, let me share a link to that fabulous Eastercon programme. Only a few of the panels won’t be available virtually. https://guide.conversation2023.org.uk/ The timezone is (because I’m the kind of person who loves stating the obvious)_ UTC/GMT+1. Normally it would be UTC/GMT 0 (zero, nothing at all) but the UK is in daylight savings time, unlike me. I’m heading towards winter and we’ve lost summer time. I’m on panels and giving a reading, so, if you join us at Conversation, join me in conversation! (And that’s my bad joke of the day. Now everyone around me safe from my attempts at wit for hours.)

In the meantime, I might copy my character and sleep.

 

If Sleeping Beauty were Jewish


Sleeping Beauty was Jewish in a non-Jewish world. It was just over a week before Pesach (1). She had a thousand and one deadlines from the world outside, partly because April is a busy time of the year in the non-Jewish world and partly because if she didn’t clear the decks (2) then crucial things would fall into the mire while she commemorated Exodus (3).

She was tired of being exotic. Tired of being Jewish. Tired of being busy. Let me admit it, she was just plain tired.

Sleeping Beauty took another long look at the cupboard (4) and said “I’m going to take a nap.”

She was woken up a week before Pesach by a pretty standard handsome prince. Things were looking good. For one thing, there was the prince. For another, after a hundred years the food in her pantry was unbelievably past its use-by date. She simply threw everything away to start again. The easiest Pesach cleaning (5) she had ever done in her life. For a third thing, there was the prince.

There were no deadlines. They had all gone, long ago. So had her opportunities. So had her friends. But her prince was a nice chap. She could deal.

That next week she discovered what her new life would be like. She had hastily married her prince, which was fine. What was less good was that he didn’t even know what ‘Jewish’ meant and how her background shaped her life. She was beginning to discover the effect of cultural change on everyday life in other ways, too. For instance, she had her own castle still, but none of the servants quite understood her instructions. What was oddest of all was that the people around her kept telling her, ‘No-one hates Jews any more. Stop complaining.’ Yet she still couldn’t go to synagogue without security guards three thick.

The princess thought “At least my guard is because royalty needs security in this odd future of mine. It’s not because anyone threatens Jews with violence anymore. I know this because there was nothing about violence against Jews in the newspapers. That’s another good thing: I’ve slept through racism and it’s gone.”

She arrived at shul (6) and discovered they wouldn’t let her in unless they knew her. There were security guards 5 thick and barbed wire to boot.

“The schoolground was fire-bombed yesterday,” explained one of them, apologetically.

“No-one told me. It wasn’t in the news.”

“It happened to the Jewish community. Why should it reach the news? It wasn’t terrorism, after all. It wasn’t even important,” said that non-Jewish guard.

The princess had a very private morning service, just herself and her prayer-book, in the tower she had hidden in a hundred years ago. Then she went right back to sleep again.

(1) Passover. Not to be confused with Easter with which it sometimes coincides. It’s the time of great family feasts, much alcohol (for 1 or 2 nights) and becoming very bored with eating unleavened bread. There are no Easter eggs, no Easter bunny and there is absolutely no Good Friday.

(2) Enough cleaning to generate great angst in even the tidiest neatest human being on the planet. One part of it is to get rid of any chametz (food not suitable for Passover).

(3) Moses and his Merry Men (and Women). Or the second book of the Bible, which contains the story of Moses. Or both. Take your pick.

(4) Or the pantry. Anywhere where food is kept. They all have to be emptied and cleaned for Passover and it’s one of things that sounds simple, but necessitates many long looks and much tearing of hair. This process is the single biggest argument for never becoming Jewish.

(5) Pesach cleaning – ritual cleaning for Passover. See (4).

(6) Shul is another word for synagogue, the place of prayer for Judaism. After all that cleaning, one needs a prayer or two, though maybe not the three hours that’s traditional in Orthodox Judaism on first day Passover.

Everyday: the update

personby Gillian Polack
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My life is very busy right now. Just for once, Im going to skip over the health stuff entirely. I know I’m juggling newly hatched chicks and cannot drop them: you don’t need to know about the enar-misses and the squawks and the way my hands are scratched and pecked at. To avoid talking about being sick, then, I’m going to make a list.

Ten things I’m doing this week.

1. Researching – this is my regular research and is all about how the built worlds are described in novels. Not just any novels. Fairy tale retellings.

2. More researching. I’m giving an academic paper that involves close knowledge of Marvel movies and of Old French chansons de geste and Medieval Arthurian tales. I’m not reading and watching all these stories from scratch. This is stuff I’ve known for years, especially the chansons de geste. My first academic analysis of Old French epic legends was in 1982. (I grow old.) It’s the most fun revision ever, and it’s going to last me through until May. It’s my spare-time reading and viewing, and a really good reason to get other work done.

3. Eating. I’m finishing food up for Passover. Tonight I became so tired of it that I ordered takeaway dinner. Three hours later I got my act together again and mung beans are madly sprouting for eating in two days. That’s the last of the mung beans.

4. Preparing for Passover, the rest of it. So much work… and I have to start extra early because of not being that well. I watch my progress every day. Today’s big event was making sure I had the right birthday present for my mother and that she could have it on the right day. If I fail at everything else, as long as Mum has her birthday present and I have the right food and a clean kitchen I can manage.

5. Preparing for the UK’s National Science Fiction Convention. It’s called Conversation and everything I know about the programme so far says that even the online programme is going to be wonderful. British fan interests aren’t the same as North American fan interests (although there is overlap) which is why I love going to virtual conventions in both regions. If Australia ran a virtual convention, I would attend here, too.

6. Everything else. I have a list, and right now it’s a lost list, so ‘Everything else’ is the best I can do!

Recovering

personby Gillian Polack
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I’ve had a fascinating last few days. I’ve attended Boskone and the Historical Fictions Conference and had a wonderful time at both. I’ve seen two friends for the first time since COVD began. I’ve even watched the first episode of Picard. I’ve done all this with a badly broken tooth, a dead fridge, and a slew of things that kept going wrong. I stopped counting things going wrong after six, and that was on Saturday.

I have a new (much smaller but much more reliable) refrigerator. The insurance came through and it didn’t cost me that much. Delivery was full of things going wrong, but it’s done and all I have to do is sort out the tail end and things are better. I have more exercises to deal with some of the physical pain, as I spent this morning physiotherapying (if that is not a word it should be).

The rest of today is mostly catching up with the work I missed doing when life went awry. And resting. And drinking water, because we’re nearing an end of a heatwave here. (Of course my refrigerator broke on the hottest day of that heat wave – this is perfectly normal, as well as it being normal that every source of help was closed for the weekend). Tomorrow I begin sorting the other things that went wrong, including the tooth.

This is, therefore, an excuse for a post, and not actually a post.

If you’ve also had things go wrong during the last week or so, please feel free to share them. We can them sympathise with each other and all feel just that much better.

My good news from the physio is that my sense of balance isn’t as far gone as I feared and I will get it back in no time. I now have exercises to ensure this happens. My good news from the conferences is that I got to enjoy myself… and that I don’t think I embarrassed myself.

Easter in 1903 and the importance of listening

personby Gillian Polack
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Hot cross buns are being promoted all over the place right now, which means that Easter looms. I say ‘looms’ because Easter holds an amount of darkness for me. My family mostly doesn’t talk about it, but it is the moment when my family was told by its patriarch to flee. “Children, run!” he said (but in Yiddish).

I think it’s time we talked about this.

My great-great-grandfather was one of the 500 people hurt (with intent, with malice, with much antisemitism) in the Kishinev pogrom. I don’t know what other damage was done to the family. All I know about it was that he was hurt and saw the writing on the wall for Jews in his home town and that he told his children to run.

The anniversary this year is just before Easter. The pogrom was intentionally during Easter. It’s an historical thing in the Christian world, to hurt Jews on Christian festivals. This is why I strongly suggest that those who want Jews to have Christmas trees or eat hot cross buns should not press it if they meet “I don’t do this things”. You may be touching on hurtful ground if you’re talking to someone who still has that memory of the pain. Also, do not ask us, “Do you remember exactly how your family got hurt on Easter/Christmas?” I’m telling you here, about my family. Let the story of how my family fled across the world because it was unsafe to be home, during Easter save other Jews from that question.

The blood libel played a part in the pogrom, but it was a lot more than that. Nearly half of Kishinev was Jewish, so it wasn’t a small minority being hated by the majority. It was literally people saying, “Let us destroy half our neighbours.”

The blood libel was an excuse. False accusations of murder of a Christian child.

As I interpret it, the pogrom was organised with the help of a newspaper and in a somewhat similar way to the January 6 event in the modern US. I’m reliant on translations and everything hurts to read, because my family was damaged. So… I suggest you read about it. I’ll have links shortly, and one of those links leads to a book on the subject. One day I must obtain that book and read it and understand … today is not that day.

Ironically, the first time I heard about the whole linking of Jews to blood thing was during Passover (near Easter, but that year, not quite the same days) when I was in primary school. I’d brought extra unleavened bread into school because some other children like to try things and assuaging curiosity has been, for me, a good way of reducing the antisemitism.

One child shouted at me, “I can’t eat that, it’s got the blood of babies in it.” I tried explaining kashruth because if one understands kashruth then one understands just how offensive the ‘Jews drink the blood of babies’ statement is. It goes against so much of who we are. That didn’t help

The next day, I brought the rest of the box of matzah in and ask the other child to read the ingredients.

“Flour, water, salt.”

“Which of those is babies’ blood?” I asked. She tentatively nibbled a bit and agreed there was no blood in it and lo, for the rest of primary school I was safe from that particular accusation. To replace the blood of babies, the group she mixed in all decided that I had personally killed Jesus. At age nine. They told me so.

Being a science fiction person already, I asked if that meant I invented a time machine. They were flummoxed and refused to let me play with them. I was flummoxed and started dreaming of things I could do with a time machine. This is when I knew for a fact history was going to be part of my future. And that murdering people was not something I wanted to do. Ever.

Anyhow, back to the 1903 pogrom that destroyed my family’s very middle class life in a major city on the other side of the world…

Here’s a summary. I chose this one because the man in the white hat in the top picture, looks very like one of my uncles: https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-a-small-pogrom-in-russia-changed-the-course-of-history/

It was important historically, as this article suggests. Japan had already begun its road into imperialism, but the inefficacy of the Russian leaders in preventing the pogrom led it to think about the rules of war in unexpected ways. To me, this also suggests that Pearl Harbour was part of a pattern: https://besacenter.org/kishinev-pogrom-russia-japan/

Why am I talking about it now? Because I offered to answer questions about antisemitism in a couple of for a now that it’s getting bad again. I want to do my bit to make it hurt less.

This is why.

I am mostly of refugee descent. At the heart of the way I view the world is always being told that I’m an outsider, that I don’t have full human rights, that I don’t belong.

This has taught me that I need to be public about antisemitism. I need to talk with people about it, even if it gives me pain.

If someone says they hurt because of prejudice, listen to them and hear what they’re saying. Then do some homework before explaining things back to them, trying to solve problems, or telling them someone else hurts more. All of today’s post is about the reason just one branch of my family fled. It’s fine to take learning about these things one step at a time. What is not fine is ignoring or explaining back or assuming we are at fault for the bigotry of others.

This whole post was triggered by it being Easter soon, and by someone telling me that I hadn’t factored in other bigotry when I was specifically talking about antisemitism.

It’s one of those years. I’ve had them before, but… they exhaust me on so many levels. Be gentle to anyone from a minority background. Jews are the canary in the bigotry coalmine. If we’re hurting, you can guarantee the bigots are out in force and attacking other people as well. If you can’t think of anything you can do that will help, try listening. Listening and hearing are such big gifts.

Where Gillian Whispers to Trees

personby Gillian Polack
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Today is one of my favourite Jewish holidays. It’s the birthday of trees. When I was a child, we planted a tree in the backyard. I used to find a really nice tree and hug it and wish it happy birthday. This latter wasn’t due to any religious proclivities – I loved hugging trees when I was little and this was the perfect excuse. If I had time and could find a good paperbark, I’d take a bit of the paperlike bark and write a poem to trees, on their birthday. Luckily for the world, none of these poems survive. I don’t think I showed them to anyone, either. They were between me and the birthday celebrants. I once made a magazine using paperbark, but that had nothing to do with the birthday of trees.

These days, I donate a sum of money that has symbolic significance and someone plants trees for me, in a place that really needs them. Every year I do a bit of an internet search to decide on which organisation should get my money. I donate, then promptly forget how much money and which organisation. The trees will be planted, that’s the important thing. I may, however, quietly whisper a “Happy birthday’ when I press the ‘donate’ button.

Because the old Jewish way of counting used the alphabet, every word in Hebrew has a numerical value. The word I chose for trees today was “Life.” I didn’t have enough money to plant that many trees, but I had enough to spend that amount of money on planting trees somewhere they were needed. I forgot, however, to whisper that happy birthday. If I were still that tree-hugging five year old, I’d wonder if they missed me. (Let me make up for dereliction and whisper right now…)

I’m back. I even sang trees the birthday song this year, because it’s midnight and midsummer in Australia and it seemed appropriate.

One of the small mysteries of my life is that so many people tell me how important Chanukah is. I know this is because it’s closeish to Christmas so it’s considered an acceptable festival by many non-Jews. Tu B’Shvat (today) is only a little further away, and it’s all about trees. Why can’t the secular world choose it, instead?

I may never truly understand why the non-Jewish world favours the festival when we gamble above the festival when we plant trees.

Our next important festival is the one where it’s obligatory to get drunk. I have my own version of the Purim story. If any of you are interested in it, let me know and I’ll put it up here when the time comes.

So Much of a Good Thing

personby Madeleine Robins
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Map of California indicating drought status as of January 13, 2023
Image from U.S. Drought Monitor https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Current Map/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA

I have rain fatigue.

This is the rainy season in San Francisco. We know to expect that December through February will be wet–although this year the procession of atmospheric rivers, cyclone bombs (WTF?) and their accompanying sequelae–floods, mudslides, property damage, even loss of life–seems to be overdoing it. The mantra, in California, is “We need the rain.” And we do. The unrelenting rain of the last month has been a soggy, cold, disastrous blessing. If you’ll look at the map, you’ll note that there is no where in the state that isn’t “abnormally dry.” Currently a little less than half the state (46%) is in a state of severe drought,. Sounds pretty awful. But wait, what about all that heavy rainfall in the last month? Hasn’t that helped at all?

In fact, it has. A lot. Three months ago 94% of the state was in a state of severe drought (41% was actually in extreme drought). Three months ago 16% of the state was in a state of exceptional drought–and exceptional, in this situation, is not a good thing. So that last month of rain has been a godsend. And given how far the state still has to go in order to be out of a state of drought, I should not complain if we get another month or two of deluge.

Sadly, I almost certainly will. Continue reading “So Much of a Good Thing”…

My To-Do List

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Every morning my sweetheart asks me “What do you have today?” And every morning it irritates me, because it means — or I take it to mean — “What tasks are you going to do today?”

Many of those tasks are things that must get done but that I don’t particularly want to do, like managing money or cleaning things or making my tech work better. I make lists of those tasks but they’re not really what I’m going to do today.

The real answer to the question of what am I going to do today is think, because thinking is all I ever want or intend to do.

The answer does not change. It is the same every day. I get up, do my morning toiletries, do some physical therapy, feed the cat, and make coffee all with the goal of sitting down to think and maybe write.

My whole goal in life is to have the things I don’t want to do simplified enough that they become routine and don’t take much time so that all I really need to do is think. Continue reading “My To-Do List”…

Work in summer

personby Gillian Polack
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I had very fine intentions this week. I was going to say something Wise. Then I was going to say something Important. Then I was going to move back to my introductions to my own books, and talk about a novel.

It’s summer here, however, and the heat has melted my brain. This is why I normally write in the wee hours of my morning at this time of year: there is less heat then.

So what was I doing in the wee hours of my Monday morning? Why was I not writing to you? I finished my monthly Patreon newsletter, and sent it out. What you get from me today, then, is a pause. If you want to know more about my Patreon, you can find it here: https://www.patreon.com/GillianPolack

This month my patrons asked me to talk about antisemitism. There’s a short story where I tried (and failed) to find a way of explaining the cultural loss it incurs. There is non-fiction that gives some explanation. There’s some (very personal) advice for writers who come from mainstream culture. It explains the first big step they can take to write about people who come from different backgrounds to themselves. Without this first step, other understanding can be shallow, and so the writing is less than it should be.  And, for my top tier of patrons, I talked about what’s happening in the publishing industry. I pointed to the need to support writers in these very, very difficult times. My estimate is that the next three years is going to lose us many favourite writers: support from readers is the biggest factor in many of us staying the distance.

All this boils down to the appearance of my once-a-policy-wonk self. It’s talking to my historian self. I’m looking at the shape of publishing and its internal dynamics and patterns of change over time… it’s all a bit too exciting.

If you want to know more about any of the subjects I talk about on Patreon, I can talk about them here, on Mondays. My patrons get first look, though, so it won’t be instant. And since I’m no longer paid for my insights, writing about the big subjects that tax my brain is a low priority. I’ll still work at understanding everything (we all have our obsessions – I have this one and I have chocolate), but I can’t take it further. Income matters.

My highest priority right now is writing about my research. (I get paid for it!) This month and next I’m focused on food and foodways and history and genre. A curious side-effect of this research is that I think I finally understand what makes certain writers popular. I can trace the critical aspects of their fiction and have linked them clearly to things of cultural importance in the outside world. This fit with all my earlier work, but it means I understand far, far better what makes a work a best-seller when an equally good work dies in a ditch. (I love my research so very much!)

I’m gradually working through the physical morass I’ve been in for the last few months. When I’m out of it, I’ll return to interviewing writers. I have so many amazing writers to interview!

In the meantime – including next week – I’ll keep introducing my own work.

If you want to see me at a conference, I’ll be at the virtual side of Boskone in February.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I go to ponder food in fiction.

Final Friday: Year Out, Year In….

personby Laura Anne Gilman
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I woke up this morning thinking, “today is December 30th.”  The final Friday of 2022. A weekend to celebrate (good planning, 2022!), and Monday rolls around in a new year.

[disclaimer; the rest of this post will be taking a Northern Hemisphere view of the season.  Apologies to friends in the Southern hemisphere]

For me, the “new year” always feels like it starts in September.  Part of that may be because I’m Jewish, and our lunar new year comes around then, but I think it’s more about school starting again.  New clothes, new schedules, new notebooks and pens… all that amazing, long-stretching possible.

By the time December comes around, though, the routines have become, well routine. The notebooks are scrawled in, the pens lost or dried up, the possible likewise drying into the actual.

Maybe that’s why New Year’s Day is my favorite holiday, because you’re stuck, you’re tired, you’re a little worn out, and then New Year’s Eve comes around, and people start talking about fresh starts, about making resolutions to do it better this time.  It’s a second chance pretending to be a new start. It’s addictive. 

And resolving to do something is easy.  “This year I’m gonna…”

So many things we’re gonna.

Over a decade ago, I  resolved to make no more resolutions, and that’s one I’ve managed to keep.  Mostly.  But I’m no more immune to the lure of a fresh start than I am to the lure of a fresh, new notebook, never mind that I already have more notebooks, half-filled, than even a writer could ever need.  It’s aspirational, I’m gonna DO IT this time.  I’m going to take control of my own story, and rewrite it fresh, and better.

Yep. This year I’m going to stop worrying about Goodreads reviews.  I’m going to stop buying anything from Amazon. I’m going to write every single day, and make every single internal deadline.

C’mon.  No I’m not.  

That’s not to say we can’t change, of course we can. We do. In fact, it’s harder NOT to change, than to change.  It takes serious effort to remain static in the face of life’s constant friction. But personal, internal changes are most effective when done a piece at a time.  There is no deus ex machina to lift us overnight out of our funk.

But if our lives are stories – and they are, a multitude of intermingling stories, crosshatching the globe –  then January 1st doesn’t start the revision of the last 365 days. It’s the first page of the next chapter.

Time to build on what we’ve already written.

What new chapter are you going to write?