On Cruelty, Poverty, and Hierarchy

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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On Deep History and the BrainThe cruelty is the point. People keep saying that about the criminal occupying our White House, the Republicans in general, the Kochs and their fellow oligarchs, and the others who hold a lot of power in the United States right now.

It’s hard for me to fathom that attitude, but I’m beginning to think it’s true.

I just read historian Daniel Lord Smail’s On Deep History and the Brain, a very thought-provoking book that takes history far beyond the Western Civ I learned in school.

He mentions the castellans, 11th and 12th century men who built or took over a castle, hired a bunch of thugs to defend it, and terrorized the people around into working for them. Random cruelty works.

Right now in the United States we have a lot of people in power who think like castellans.

Smail also quotes Robert Sapolsky: “When humans invented poverty, they came up with a way of subjugating the low-ranking like nothing ever before seen in the primate world.” Continue reading “On Cruelty, Poverty, and Hierarchy”…

Treading Lightly: Mending

personby Pati Nagle
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Our capitalist culture wants us to throw away any garment that is slightly damaged. Socks aren’t expensive – why not buy a new pair?

But there are costs to that practice that have nothing to do with our bank accounts. Costs to the planet, in the form of trash in the landfill, and carbon footprint for the manufacture and shipping of new socks, not to mention all the packaging (usually plastic) involved.

My favorite socks are still good, it’s just that they wore thin in a couple of places. So I decided to learn how to darn them. Darning is basically using needle and thread to weave new “cloth” over a thin spot or even a hole. I used colorful cotton embroidery floss to mend some small holes in other socks before tackling the large wear in this one.

As I was darning those small holes, I wondered if anyone had ever done a “spiderweb” darn rather than a rectangular one. I searched, but didn’t find anything about a circular darn. So I decided to just try it. It was a little chaotic, but the result is kind of like a mandala, and I like it. Anyone who does Tai Chi knows that these areas of the foot are energy centers, so I like having circles there. And the weaving of these circles was a kind of meditation.

Little holes can also be covered with embroidered flowers or leaves, making mending into decoration. I like that. It’s even becoming a bit of a fashion statement to mend clothing with color, like a badge of honor, instead of trying to hide the fact that the clothing has done good service. It’s a reminder that we can still get good use out of things by mending them, instead of following the consumerist practice of tossing them and buying replacements.

Scraps of History

personby Gillian Polack
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I’m supposed to be working on a novel, but a conference has intervened so I’ve been visiting Medievalists for two days. I can’t tell you everything I’ve learned in the last few days (for it’s a technical update for me in what’s happening in the world of manuscript studies, since my first PhD included matters of that kind) , but I can give you ten moments of interest.

1. Some illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages have curtains. A picture might have a special religious meaning, or it might be of someone losing their head, or it might be two people in bed. The scholar in question was introducing us to the little scraps of cloth and the fine silk thread and the holes in the parchment that make these curtains. I want to call them veils. One of the terms for finding them in a manuscript catalogue is ‘serpente’.

2. Ireland is creating a virtual reproduction of the National Archive that burned down in 1922, and it is a thing of beauty already. Plus, there’s some really neat programming behind it.

3. Holes in manuscripts can be turned into a part of the story. The hole in the parchment we were shown represented the Wound of Christ and dripped red paint. Continue reading “Scraps of History”…

The Future is NOW

personby Amy Sterling Casil
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What does a cute dog on the phone have to do with service stations of the future? Bear with me: I hope you’ll like the journey and its destination.

I barely remember the service stations of old. I can pull up small, distant memories of 33 cent gasoline, the Sinclair dinosaur, Phillips 66 signs, and service station attendants who washed the windows, filled the tank, and helped in emergencies. I remember driving to Palm Springs with my grandmother and a sandstorm that pitted our windshield and forced us to stop at one such station in Whitewater. I recall a trim, neat guy in a white short-sleeved shirt and sharply-creased navy blue trousers helping us. His name was embroidered on the chest as I recall. Maybe it was “Joe” or “Frank.” Continue reading “The Future is NOW”…

Dragon Con Greeting in Virtual Space—with Imp!

personby Jeffrey A. Carver
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Author with imp

Dragon Con Virtual is underway this weekend! As a scheduled program participant for the torpedoed-by-pandemic real-life con, I was asked to shoot a two-minute video greeting about why I love science fiction and Dragon Con. It’s probably up on their site somewhere, but blast if I know where, so I’m posting it here.

In the course of shooting the video, an imp appeared in the corner of my screen during one take. Where’d she come from?? It wasn’t my best take, but the imp was too charming not to keep. So here’s the Outtake—with Imp:

Or directly on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oY6WWvkOtZY

If you want to see my actual best take, here it is (but no imp, alas):

https://youtu.be/L9R4RRL1w5A

Thinking Generationally

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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I’m working — slowly — on a book that includes a generation ship. (The way I’m going it may take a few generations to write it.) The other day on social media, a friend observed that the extended lockdown made it clear to him that he wouldn’t be happy on a generation ship.

I think I would be. Being stuck on a space station with just a few other people – which I find more similar to lockdown – wouldn’t make me happy, but a well-set-up generation ship with a thousand or so other people has the potential to provide one of the things I value most in life: community.

I’m talking way more community than we get in our modern lives. I mean, I live in an apartment building with thirteen households, and while we’re mostly friendly and cooperative (except for one asshole), we never have each other over for dinner. We do things for each other in a pinch, pet each other’s dogs, chat in the lobby or in the back yard, but we’re not a community.

When I was at Clarion West all those years back, living in a dorm with sixteen other students up and down the hall, I was happy most of the time, because I was surrounded by people with common purpose. I’ve felt that way in Aikido dojo, though I didn’t live there and have as much community as I would have wanted.

But our modern lives are not well set up for community. Also, since I grew up in a small town where the ways in which I was different would have made me more and more miserable as I got older if I’d been stuck there, I know that communities are not always good.

But the generation ship that I’m developing for my book could be a very happy place for me. Continue reading “Thinking Generationally”…

Making My Plan

personby Madeleine Robins
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In the last election there was a brief, comic video by then-Vice President Joe Biden about making a plan to vote. Things don’t feel so comic now (although Biden really has a nice light touch, and no fear of mocking himself, and isn’t that pleasant?) but the essential message is still important. Make a plan to vote.

In those far off days of 2016 that meant relatively simple things like “where do I vote,” and “can I walk/Lyft/drive/take the bus there.” These days… oy. So many complicating factors. Not to brag, because we’re having other problems like the tendency of the state to spontaneously combust, but here in California getting information and voting is relatively straightforward: you can check here to find out 1) if you’re registered, 2) where to vote, 3) what your options are. This year, for the first time, all registered voters in California will receive a mail-in ballot no later than 29 days before the election (now that the Postmaster General has pinkie-promised not to slow down the mail no matter how hard the Boss asks). Me, my current plan is to drop off my mail-in ballot early. And then track its progress, Continue reading “Making My Plan”…

Living in small spaces during big times

personby Gillian Polack
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Every few months there are five Mondays in a month. Also, I posted last week because … magpies. This means you hear from me three Mondays running, and this is only Monday #2. Brace yourself…

I broke iso on Saturday. There was a medicine I urgently needed and I didn’t want to ask a friend when I also had to post a letter and get some money form the bank. I walked under falling blossom and realised that I’d chosen to go outdoors the first day of the new season. The actual change of season isn’t until 1 September, but Spring arrived on Saturday. The only shop I actually went into was the chemist. There, I could see why I am not supposed to go near people. For every nine people using common sense, there was one who wanted to make the queue move faster by creeping up behind me.

I break iso once every six weeks, on average.

Just sitting in the sunshine reminded me that the outside world is not defined by the internet and Netflix. This got me wondering why I don’t feel the need to break out more often. All kinds of other people cannot stay in their homes even if they have gardens. They have to buy milk or bread every day. I only reach that level of stir crazy every six weeks, despite living in an apartment.

I suspect it’s partly because I’ve worked mostly from home for years. I don’t have to go out at all now, though, and so I have more time to catch up on silly films I missed.

I shall not list the films, for they are all ones I would not have gone to the cinema to see, except Hamilton. Hamilton is not a silly film, even though I ran an inner argument with it the whole time.

That inner argument is the other thing. I’m watching movies with Italian subtitles or Spanish subtitles where I can, for my insufficient knowledge of both languages makes me restless. A few minutes ago I started telling my TV screen that I had not fully considered the effects that the choice of ‘guard’ and ‘watch’ and equivalent words had over the way we think about possessions and people. Then I moved onto ‘save’. Look them up in Spanish and Italian if you don’t already know them. Take your time. Tangents for thought are perfectly allowable when one looks up words.

I was watching the live action Aladdin and had to pause it to do work, for otherwise a whole new plot would have accompanied the film.

Not that I object to whole new plots accompanying films. Earlier today I was thinking that three of the Star Wars films would be massively improved with a dubbed version that turned them into comedy.

I like music, though, and needed to listen to it rather than let my mind play with historical linguistics. I often dance to musicals, mildly, for it hurts. Every time I do this, the next day is less difficult so it is worthy pain. My dancing feet remind me that they are musicals and that I really shouldn’t drift too much.

My time sense has warped beyond all logic since the bushfires and COVID-19, but my mind takes me into some wonderful explorations. I was bored for an hour earlier this year and I tweeted it. It astonished me, that, in over twelve months of things being so seriously challenging, I should only have been bored that one hour.

I rather suspect I made a decision in my childhood that no matter how alone I was, I was not going to be lonely. I know I worked hard in my teens to develop this skill. I’m still working on some elements of it. I wasn’t expecting this work to give me the pandemic experience some of my friends crave. I hope there are classes on this for people who had lives that didn’t push them to develop this skill. I can’t imagine how awful COVID-19 in an apartment would be without my arguments with the TV screen or my dreams while I wash dishes. (I hate washing dishes.)

I am not alone in this drift of time and the richness it embraces. Quite a few writers I know are experiencing something similar. What I wonder is the possible relationship between problematic childhoods, a determination to not be defeated by them and us becoming writers.

My sentences are growing complicated and I’ve been sitting down for too long. Time for more Aladdin.

Jupiter through Celestron

Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon!

personby Jeffrey A. Carver
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I came back from walking the dogs and saw a wonderful triad of the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn—in a clear sky (by Boston standards), and right above my driveway. If I’m ever going to bring that beautiful Celestron telescope down from the dining room, I thought, this should be the time. So I limbered up with some back exercises—or should have—and lugged it downstairs. What a beautiful view! The Moon was glorious, Jupiter was spectacular, and Saturn was elusive. Finally I found it, though, with its rings tilted at a rakish angle. I texted my family, I phoned them: Get down here!

This is them, taking their turns at the scope.

And here is the worst astronomical picture ever: Jupiter and the Galilean moons, imaged with an Android phone held shakily to the eyepiece. I thought all I’d gotten was a blur. But when I checked later, I was pleased to see a recognizable picture of the planet! (The big blue smudge is an artifact. Either that, or it’s Neptune, photobombing my shot.)

In a world filled with wildfires, hurricanes, pandemic, and walking calamities in high public office, sometimes you just need a little piece of the cosmos to calm you down.

 

Just Let Me Have a Nap, then I Can Conquer the World. Or at Least Potty Training.

personby Laura Anne Gilman
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2020 is an ongoing trash fire.  That’s just a fact.  It’s easy to get bogged down in it, to decide there’s no damn use, to just…sink under the weight of it all. Like most people, I’m barely getting through the day. Taking on more responsibility seemed crazy.

But I’d been thinking for a while about getting a dog. And when the older of my two cats passed this spring, and I moved into my own place, it seemed like maybe now was the time?

So I started looking at shelters, putting in applications for dogs who matched what I wanted: a young adult, mid-sized and solidly built, who was cat-friendly.   Each time, I lost out because there is a scarcity of cat-friendly pups available after the great Lockdown Pup Adoption Frenzy.  So, meh, I figured it would take a while.

Then one of the shelters I’d applied to reached out and asked me if I’d be interested in fostering, since they knew I did that for Homeward Pet.  And I said, sure, why not?  And they said, “we have 8-week-old puppies.”  And I said, “sure, why not?”  Because I’m an idiot like that.

“They’re 8-week-old Red Heelers,” they said.  And I said, “oh hell.”  Because that kind of high-energy, high-attention critter was very much not what I was looking for.

And then I saw the picture of “Minnie” and I may have lost a bit of my heart to her.  So I agreed, and the night before my birthday, a transport of twenty-four (yes, 24) pups, including Minnie and her litter mates, arrived, and were parceled out to the waiting fosters.

Dear Reader, I may have known what I was agreeing to, but I had no idea what I was getting into.

Minnie (whom I immediately dubbed the more accurate “Maxi”) is a delightful, adorable, slightly clumsy, and surprisingly thoughtful creature, and I already adore her.  But she. Has. To. Pee. Every. Three. Hours. 

Which isn’t a problem during the daytime. Having enforced breaks to get up and stretch my legs has been nice, actually.  But at night?  At night it’s a different story.

And no, I can’t let her pee in her crate.  Or, I could, but it’s a bad idea, for many reasons, and I’m not going to do that.  So I’m setting my alarm, and getting up at midnight, and again at 3am, and again at 6am….

It’s only been three days, and I’m beyond exhausted.  I’ve got a book I need to revise, and a couple of short stories to write, and a day gig, and a regime to protest.  And a cat who is being really good about all this but also wants his Human Time. 

There are times I just want to sink.

But.  In the midst of the trash fire that is 2020, there’s something kind of amazing about having this fresh, fragile, trusting life in your hands.  About knowing that you can do it right, and make sure they get a solid start to life, to grow up confident, unafraid, and loving.  Healthy, and happy.

And to know that whatever you do is returned to you, immediately.  Because when I stagger to the crate at 3am, I’m greeted by a warm, wriggly bundle of sheer joy, who wants only to lick my face – and pee, yeah, but first, there needs to be face licking.

And between kitten snuggles and puppy kisses, I’m able to think not just about surviving, but thriving.

If she’d just stop licking my face so I can work.