Exploring science fiction in song
Hawkwind's "Hall of the Mountain Grill": It doesn't get spacier than this.
Heard a fun story on NPR on the commute home last night.
Reporter Chris Boros used NASA’s recent discovery of water on the moon as an opportunity to delve into an exploration of science fiction in popular song. Just so you know, it dates back to a 1905 ditty called “Come Take a Trip in My Airship” (the first steampunk song, perhaps?). He also takes a look at flying saucers popping up in hillbilly music and in ’50s novelty records and briefly mentions the filk phenomenon and S.F. themes in ’70s prog rock.
Sadly, he missed an opportunity to mention Hawkwind, the penultimate space rock band, and to explore some of the trippier musical excursions into the stars (Gong, anyone?). Still, I can’t complain when NPR does a pretty good job mashup of two of my favorite subjects.
Latest issue of Tissue
Necrotic Tissue: It's a contender
A few days ago, I received a comp copy of Necrotic Tissue No. 9 which contains my story “The Circus.”
Loved it. And not just because it contains one of my pieces. The digest-sized magazine clocks in at around 120 pages, contains a diversity of high-quality horror prose and one of the best interviews I’ve read with Texas scribe Joe R. Lansdale. Not to mention, the colorfully grotesque cover looks pretty sharp. This mag has turned into a real contender.
It’s nice to see NT evolve from an online publication into a print pub of such high quality. Lord knows, with fewer and fewer paying outlets for short horror fiction, we need it.
R.I.P. Howard Zinn
Telling it like it was: Howard Zinn
Author, teacher and activist Howard Zinn has died at age 87.
Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” remains an influential leftist overview of American history, calling Christopher Columbus out for genocide and trumpeting the contributions of labor, minorities and women. And to think the book, which has been through myriad reprints, initially hit the stands when Reagan was in the White House.
“I can’t think of anyone who had such a powerful and benign influence,” linguist Noam Chomsky, a close friend of Zinn’s, told the AP. “His historical work changed the way millions of people saw the past.”
I agree completely.
As a writer toiling in obscurity, I was also heartened to learn that “A People’s History” was initially published with next to no publicity and a run of 5,000 copies. Didn’t stop the book from selling millions, mainly through word of mouth.
Strange days in South Texas (but aren’t they all?)
What a week.
First, a sinkhole begins swallowing up a cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood in San Antonio. Then a man in Mission guns down his brother in argument over who gets to use the crapper first.
And now we’re back to the Alamo City, where animal-welfare folks are up in arms about teen-lycanthrope Wolfie Blackheart cutting the head off a dead dog during her adventures in home taxidermy.
It just doesn’t get any better.
If luck holds out, it will be raining centipedes by Saturday.
Good advice for creative types
I spotted the link to Eric Fortune’s “Tips and Tricks from an Art Slave” on Twitter earliet today and now can’t remember who first passed the link along. (Chris Roberson, maybe?)
At any rate, I was glad I clicked through. Eric shares seven sensible tips to keep yourself from sliding down the slippery slope from artist to art slave. That is to say, someone engaged in enjoyable creative endeavor versus someone who’s finding their work “stressful, mindless and paycheck motivated”.
Although it’s targeted to visual artists, I could see any of the advice applying to writers or musicians as well. Worth a read.
Joe R. Lansdale on Edgar Allan Poe
Speaking of Poe, I got a real kick out this recent piece by Nacogdoches, Texas’ own Joe R. Lansdale. Joe praises the master of all things dark and dreadful for inspiring his creative spirit and saving him from a dreary life toiling inside an aluminum chair factory. Right on.
Nevermore for the Poe visitor?
Poe's grave marker in beautiful downtown Bawlmer.
This just in. The mystery visitor who drops by Edgar Allan Poe’s gravesite every year on his birthday with a gift of roses and cognac has apparently missed a visit. It’s the first time in 60 years the tradition has been broken, according to the Associated Press.
Here’s hoping the mysterious mourner just missed his train or came down with the flu. I’d hate to think he’d been sealed into a wall somewhere or buried prematurely.
U.S. “Culture Warriors” export the hate
Not all Ugandans are happy about U.S. Culture Warriors' brand of cultural imperialism.
Heard a great story on NPR that examines the link between Uganda’s deplorable anti-homosexuality proposal and U.S. evangelicals’ efforts to export their “culture war” to Africa.
As if these self-appointed moral crusaders hadn’t done enough damage here – fanning the flames of anti-gay hate and tearing rifts in families and churches, among other things – it now appears their speaking visits to Uganda may have been the genesis for a bill there that would impose the death penalty or life in prison on gay men and lesbians for homosexual acts.
Beyond calling out the nut jobs who actively pushed their agenda on Ugandan leaders, the NPR piece does a great job identifying mainstream Christian conservatives who have been awful silent on the issue since it surfaced. Definitely worth a listen or a read.
I agree with former Episcopal canon Jim Naughton, who told NPR these jokers should have been well aware that their message would play out with tragic results in Uganda.
“If you go to countries where there’s already a great deal of suspicion and maybe animosity towards homosexuals, and begin to tell people there, ‘Well, actually these people are child abusers, they’re coming for their children, that they’re the scourge that is being deposited on you by the secular West,’ you’re gonna get a backlash. (It’s like) showing up in rooms filled with gasoline, and throwing lighted matches around and saying, ‘Well, I never intended fire .’”
China Mieville on the current “bumper crop of science fiction wow-porn”
Harryhausen's skeletons: Better'n CGI
China Mieville had this fun piece on the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog that pokes holes in the digital effects of the new crop of big-budget SF flicks (Avatar among them). I gotta agree when he praises Ray Harryhausen’s groundbreaking stop-motion creatures (”Seventh Voyage of Sinbad,” “Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” et al.) as the high-water mark for special effects that really seem to live and breathe. I’ll take the skeleton swordfight from “Jason and the Argonauts” over any Hollywood CGI I saw last year.
Some sound book-buying advice from io9
Yes, San Antonio does have at least one independent bookstore.
This piece from io9 seemed especially relevant, what with Borders deciding to shutter its South San Antonio Waldenbooks location — the only bookstore on the economically disadvantaged Southside.
Sure, online sales have decimated the brick-and-mortar bookstores, especially the independents, but io9’s Charlie Jane Anders argues that it’s not too late for readers to use their dollars to help the indies. If the giant chains aren’t stocking the books you crave, she writes, don’t turn to Amazon, turn to your local independent.
I would even go a step further. If your independent store doesn’t stock the book, ask them to special order it for you. Ultimately, that $20 sale is going to mean way more to them than it will ever mean to Amazon. You might have to wait a few extra days to get your mitts on it, but you’ll pass the time gloating that you did the right thing.