Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
If HOW MUCH FOR JUST THE PLANET is in print, you can probably get any
bookstore to order it for you by iving them the ISBN. That way Mike
gets his royalty.

Will, Claudia was very impressed by the pumpkins, or she said she was,
and I believe her. But she was more impressed by the quantity of
heirloom beetroots...
  

    
     Pocket reprinted both books last summer as a fake subseries,
WORLDS APART (comments suppressed).  PLANET had, I think, been o.p. for
a while -- they don't tell you, and there's a pretense that All the
Books are Available All the Time.  (What they actually do is let some
time go by, and if orders still come in, reprint half a dozen or so in
a batch.)  But to the best of my knowledge they're both still available
-- new reviews pop up occasionally on amazain'tgoddit.com, for
whatever that may be worth.
     Though I was delighted by a review there of REFLECTION, by a
rabbi who was diligently reading the entire series (Life . . . is like
a cup of Earl Grey, hot, served in a Horta egg) looking for Jewish
characters.  He liked the book, and he found the character.  (Col. Jael
Rabinowitch, if anyone else is counting.)
  

    
Hi folks... just a note to the Bay Area contingent. If you were
planning on seeing my show this weekend, you've just had some of your
time liberated. due to a death in the family of one of the cast, the
show has been cancelled this weekend. We will be performing next
weekend (our closing), however.

We now return to the conversations already in progress.
  

    
Back from Yosemite.  I am come down the mountain, complete with
personal epiphany.  (I hate being a cliché, but there it is.)

I also have a lot of responses, so I’m going to break them up into
chunks, for manageability.  Apologies.  Feel free to skip ‘em if it’s
too much or to tell me to shut up, if you're inclined.  (Not that I
will, of course, but it might make you feel better.)

Kelly—On Yosemite: I’m so jealous!  We’re just starting to put
together our backpacking gear, so we haven’t been able to go
backcountry yet, but it’s a dream.  We were in the Valley, which is
convenient, but I swear I’ll never do again.  Anywhere you have to use
ear plugs to sleep is not authentic camping.  I had a fun little thing
happen when we drove up to Tenaya lake on Thursday.  There was a Danish
family there, so I got to speak a little Norwegian to them (the
languages are really similar), which made me silly-happy, and it seemed
so appropriate at that stunning alpine lake.

Kelly/Squeaks/Dan: I’ve been itching to get out to Burning Man for a
couple of years, but was intimidated.  Is there room there for anyone
who’s married, doesn’t do drugs and is over 25?  I wasn’t entirely
reassured about that after reading “Piss Clear.”

JaNell: Your first earthquake on the toilet?  Welcome to the club! 
During the aftershocks in 1994, we were shacking up with a couple of
wonderful friends (‘cause our building fell down) and it seemed that
every time our friend Scott would go into the bathroom, we’d have an
aftershock.  It became hysterical after a while.  He’d announce, “Well,
I’m going in,” and we’d all go wait in the doorways.  Was it the New
Madrid fault?  Do you know the stories about the last one there? 
Scary.

Adriana:  Welcome back!  I wanted to tell you that I love “Roze.”  

Martha—Re (774): You have the distinction of earning my very first,
absolutely unequivocal, judges-give-it-a-10, out loud/online SNORT!  (A
dubious honor, I’m sure.  Nevertheless.)

Aside: It’s raining in L.A.  In August.  Man, we are fucking up this
planet.
  

    
Pamela- my first earthquake, ever. I'm curious enough to go find out
the fault line's name, but I can tell you it's the one that forms the
Smoky Mountains...
  

    
(John) Mike:  <full, screeching halt>

Blink.

Um.  <deep breath>  Hiya.  

Nice to, er, see you here.  So.  I gotta tell you that I went to a
Robert Jordan signing a couple of years ago, shortly before _The Last
Hot Time_ came out.  During the course of our conversation, he looked
me right in the eye and said:

“If you never read another author in your life, read John M. Ford. 
He’s the best writer in America.”  

(I suspect he’d just read the proof.  Didn’t he say something similar
for the book?)

He can be rather fierce when he chooses to; it made an impression. 
However, I’m the sort of girl who prefers to make up her mind about,
well, a lot of things, actually, so I probably didn’t take him
seriously enough.  At any rate, I ran headlong into you in _Starlight
1_ with no brakes on.

_Erase/Record/Play_ is one of the most compassionate, most devastating
works of art I’ve ever encountered.  I was marked by it.

Thank you.

I do have a question, though.  Did you intend to make a direct
rebuttal to Mr. Lewis?

                “INTERVIEWER
Surely you don’t hold that a faith in justice is a form of insanity.
                DR. GORDON
Not the faith in its value.  But the belief that it’s the natural
order of things, I’d call that a delusional structure, yes.”

-_Erase/Record/Play_


 “I wooed thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries.”
--William Shakespeare

Indeed.
  

    
JaNell:  Oops.  You slipped.  Well, I'd need to check some kind of
earthquake topo or something to be sure about its location.  But my
understanding is that the New Madrid fault is the biggest fault in the
U.S., actually, much bigger than the San Andreas.  I think it starts in
southern Illinois and runs all the way through Kentucky into
Tennessee.  The last time it went in a Big One, late 1900's, it
rerouted the Mississipi by a mile, and Audobon watched the ground wave
in 8-foot swells.  Yikes.
  

    
Pamela - I really don't know, you probably know better than I do...
but I am going to find out, as I feel terribly ignorent about it.
  

    
PNH: Wanda?

“I wanda...” what he means by that?  (One scents a story.  Do tell. 
Is it the sushi?)

I have a rule about never writing letters to editors.  They check your
grammar.  But I’ll take advantage of this opportunity, since it’s only
a post.

It’s about how _Starlight 1_ was like my first semester in college.

We stayed up all night, drank beer or coffee, ate Kraft macaroni and
cheese made in a hotpot and talked about anything, just for the hell of
it and because we were 18 and could pull it off, night after night.

Mornings were rough, though, so I don’t remember a single 8:00 class I
ever had.  Except freshman Fine Arts Appreciation.  I grew up in an
Illinois farm town.  I’d never seen anything like it.

I sat up, wide-eyed at 8:00 a.m. for months—from Gregorian chant and
the Sistine chapel right through to Jimi Hendrix’s “Star Spangled
Banner” and psychedelic posters.

The doors opened.

_Starlight 1_ was all of that.  Finding out that a sense of wonder was
its own cool, again.

Thanks.
  

    
Pamela -- Yes, Black Rock City has plenty of room for married people
over 25 who aren't interested in drugs.  There are a lot of drugs and a
lot of sexuality there, but the experience is whatever you choose to
make of it.  And there is plenty of other fodder for fun at BM.
  

    
All...the way...through...Kentucky, you say?  
8-foot swells, you say?
eeep.
  

    
oh, I mean, what I meant to say was:
Hi, Pam!  Glad to see you back, and with an epiphany and everything!
  

    
Pamela -
Tenaya Lake really was beautiful. It was nice to wade around in the
water at the end of the backpacking trip.  :-)

As for Burning Man... I certainly hope it has room for an over25,
monogamously married couple... cuz that's what I'm part of. :-) I think
the people who do drugs at Burning Man are, if nothing else, either
very stupid or very brave - losing your mind in that kind of
heat/weather can be rather deadly. I had a pretty difficult time
surviving a day/night stuck in the Nevada desert, and still ended up
badly wounded from that... perhaps more than people who just drop by
once a year, I've had the lesson of surviving in the desert permanently
etched onto me. (Literally. I'm still scarred.)

From what I hear about BM, the biggest challenge is to keep couples
together. (Experianced BM folks might be able to say whether this is
actually true or not.) I read a stat on the official BM site that said
only 35% of couples leave the playa as a couple... my Other and I have
put our chances around 70% success. After looking over the announced
events, we could certainly see WHY so many couples have problems; a lot
goes on there that most people don't have to talk about with their
partner in "normal life"... my Other and I place our 'survival rate' so
high simply because, in the course of getting back together, we had to
address the same issues that c/would arise at BM.

Ooops. BM on the brain. Apologies.  :-) 

Someone mentioned needing to read Jane Yolen... try Briar Rose, it's
one of my favourites.  :-)

-Kelly
  

    

<stagewalker> - my condolences. And apologies, as I'll be out of town next
weekend, so I'll miss the show. Next time, though.
  

    
Condolences to your castmate, stagewalker.
  

    
Pamela - well, I'm 31... so that's a third of the critereon... and
yes, there's LOTS to do regardless of your interest in substances and
such. for all the hype, the whole "sex, drugs, and ravers" aspect of
Burning Man is amplified out of proportion as far as I'm concerned.

Hrm.. on the survival rate of couples... the only couple I know had a
rather difficult breakup during burning man, but it was tied far more
to the events that led up to the week than what actually happened once
they got there. They reconciled a few months later.... 
There was a couple in my camp, and they didn't seem to have any issues
at all during the week... but they're a rather unusual pair anyway.

Last year, almost everyone who did tarot readings before BM had the
Tower appear prominantly in their readings. It was a time of change
(often destructive) for a lot of people that I know. There are so many
aspects of the event that are designed to test you, not only physically
but emotionally and mentally (and relationally) as well.

Madman, Martha... thank you. I will pass on the condolences to her.
I'm sure she'll appreciate it. 
  

    
It's been enlightening these last few months, learning the boundaries
we assume in a relationship without ever specifically talking about
them. ... I sometimes think that people who are involved with those
from a different culture have an easier time; there is an acknowledged
language/thought barrier to overcome. Those of us that speak the same
native language tend to, I think, forget that a single word can have
many definitions, and that collections of words into concepts can vary
greatly from person to person.

This is where, I think, the numerous breakdowns I've heard attributed
to Burning Man come into play. People have assumptions of boundaries
without having clearly talked the boundaries out; places like Burning
Man test and stretch the boundaries, and people invariably step over
some assumptions. 

Then again, I'm a big advocate for sex and sexuality education,
including lessons in communication, clarify of concepts, boundaries and
agreements to what those boundaries are. And moreso of lately... so
perhaps it's simply like reading a Neil story and seeing more than is
actually there.  

*grins* Okay, I'll let this tangent drop now, and go find somewhere
else to harass for a bit.

-Kelly
  

    
>     The last time it went in a Big One, late 1900's, it rerouted the
> Mississipi by a mile, and Audobon watched the ground wave in 8-foot
> swells.  Yikes.

     That would actually have been the 1811 'quake.  (John James
Audubon was long gone by the late 1900s, though His Legend Lives On.)
  

    
Pamela -- I'm glad you liked e/r/p, and I'm glad Patrick gave it a
place to live.  With no judgement on anybody meant by this, it's one of
my things (HOT TIME being another) that's been rather better reviewed
outside the genre than in.  There's probably a discussion in that, but
this isn't the time or place.
  

    
Email from michaela:

Hmmm .. so I should check out _How Much For Just The Planet_ even if I
happen to hate Star Trek? It seems to be in print - (but I have to order
all my English books from Amazon Germany anyway, no use checking out
German bookstores).

Kathy Li - you made me want to read _From the end of the 20th century_ -
and then I discovered I could order a second hand copy for a small
fortune plus shipping to Europe *sigh* I'll put it somewhere on my
endless wish list of books-I-want-to-read-but-can't-afford-right-now.

Sound of Music? No idea what you lot are talking about. Not sure I want
to know though ;)

Will - I'd love to hear the chocolate-cake-recipe-Nazi-rally .. sounds
hilarious :)

And thanks for the info on "yclept" - I still can't imagine a real
sentence with that word though .. it sounds so .. dunno .. weird .. um

Michaela (trying to get started on a paper on Code-Switching and finding
lots of other things to do)
  

    
Email from The Other Glen:

Kelley - if you are looking for a "nice independant store" you might want
to check out Jian Ghomeshi's "the anti-chain depot"

http://www.jianghomeshi.com/jispots.htm

Jian is part of Moxy Fr|vous, a wonderfully silly band that sometimes
says serious things.

- The Other Glen
  

    
Email from Ninave:

Hello!  I want to congratulate all the people who had babies, went on
vacation, had birthdays, and did other really cool things in these past
months:  I did,'t say so at the time, because I don't want to drive the
sweet people who post my messages mad.  But I do enjoy listening to your
conversations, and now that I finally have something to say....
 
While we're all talking about our favorite John M. Ford books, I wanted
to mention that The Dragon Waiting is really, really a splediferous read.  
It's a 1983 book (My terribly battered copy is, at least) and I want all
of you to go read it.  And compliment Mike on it, while he's here.  :)  
And now I'm going to stop waxing fangirl, since the gentlemen is nice
enough to visit.
 
Sneaking back to lurk mode.... Ninave Who's still having a hard time
calling people she respects by their first names.  I guess I was trained
well, as a child....
  

    
>That would actually have been the 1811 'quake.  

Oops.  Wrong twice.  Thanks for the correct information, Mike.  That
was supposed to be "late 1800's," and was still incorrect.  That'll
teach me not to research.  We're all overly steeped in earthquake lore
out here; I got lazy.  I just worry about the New Madrid because of all
our family out there.  Buildings and whatnot are (supposedly) built to
earthquake specs in L.A. and we did pretty well in 1994, but I don't
know if there *are* any earthquake building codes in southern
Illinois/Kentucky.  (Again, not researched.)  It's a little scary,
because, well, that might make them more likely to "all fall down."

Dan: Warm thoughts for your castmember and the show team.

DanGuy/Dan/Kelly: Thanks for your thoughts on BM.  I appreciate both
the encouragement and realistic cautions.  The idea of conceptualizing
the boundaries for myself/"us" if I/we were to go was helpful.  (My
husband is not greatly interested--it might be a group of friends,
instead.)  I mean, I've got nothing against rampant hedonism--lovely
place to visit 'n all that.  But I think I was a little concerned that
there was no room for boundaries.  As in, don't bother to join the
party if you can't jump naked in the mudpit and exit with random
partner.  

It seems, from the stuff I read, that there's been a movement away
from the original, primary "art is free" premise to
Woodstock-on-the-Playa.  And I'm more interested in the "art is free"
part, really.  Well.  And fun.  So I don't know where that puts me,
after all.  Except that what I experience as fun isn't quite the same
as it was 10 years ago.

Hey, Rebecca!  You know, those Yosemite people told us all to get
*down* off the big rocks if a storm came in.  They missed the point
entirely.
  

    
the fools!
  

    
    Michaela -- 20th CENTURY is still available from NESFA, though
there'll still be the transatlantic postage issue.  www.nesfa.org will
provide the gen.

    Ninave -- thank you.  DRAGON did have two paperback editions from
Avon -- the first has an absolutely beautiful wraparound Sanjulian
cover and a horribly corrupt text, while the second has a ghastly green
cover, but was corrected.  (It went through other editions as well --
Goldmann did a quite nice one in hc and trade paper.  I read German,
and while I didn't give it a minute reading, it seemed like an
acceptable translation.
     [WEB OF ANGELS was done in French by J'ai Lu, and -that-
translation can cause nerve damage, though I understand the problem
facing the translator.]
    However, Jo Fletcher is going to reprint DRAGON next year as part
of Gollancz's Pretty Good O.P. Fantasy Books series (they have a
different name for the line, but it's embarrassing).