I read a lot of Gillian Bradshaw and felt vaguely embarrassed about it even at the time.
People on that thread haven't really taken the point as seriously as they might have. Yeah, I read Anne McCaffrey, but even at twelve, I knew I was indulging a somewhat childish taste, as you say FL.
More interesting are those books to which one commits one's youthful self-identity, for a time: "This is the adult world I will enter! This is how it works!" And the painful self-humiliation part is the realization of not only how young one was, but also how totally rolled one was by a flawed and even stupid worldview.
By those criteria, I wouldn't say that either Alexander or Anthony really count. Rand counts, but I hope that there are a few other authors out there with similar influence, otherwise we're all really in trouble.
You mean like works that portray a really stupid version of the grown-up world as being the real grown-up world? Maybe that's why a few people at CT have mentioned, say, Tom Clancy. If I were much younger, my nomination would be "Instapundit."
Yeah, Clancy would count. I also read Jett's Ian Fleming, and I'll even throw in the ridiculous Robert Ludlum, although these latter two are more clearly Gary Stu fantasies.
I don't know whether to be embarrassed by the fact that I liked The Witch of Blackbird Pond or by the fact that I lost my copy and had to reimburse the school.
Also, I may have idolized Thoreau without actually reading him. I no longer idolize him but still haven't read him.
I noticed at some point that the theme of all young adult novels seemed to be, "people, they disappoint you." Which was actually fairly useful, as morals go.
This all may be too youngish to count, but here goes: FL, I think it does get worse than rocking out to Asia. I rocked out to the Bay City Rollers. I dressed as a Roller for my last Halloween. Also, my first concert was Andy Gibb, where I rushed the stage for a close up photo with my instamatic camera.
I think everything that I'm embarrassed about having liked in the past, I'm embarrassed because I have assimilated an outside-world sense that I should be, rather than because I have independently decided that it is lame.
Take Richard Bach, for instance. I just loved JLS when I was in high school, must have read it 20 times, I thought it was great. (I got to Illusions a little too late I think, to find it great -- though if memory serves I did struggle to do so.) And I recognize now that it is not acceptable within a crowd of literate folks, to say something good about JLS; so in that sense I am embarrassed about having liked it. And my tastes have changed, I don't think I would pick it up now, though I might recommend it to my daughter when she is 13 or something. But I don't feel the kind of repulsion toward it that I would need to, in order to feel ashamed or embarrassed-for-my-own-sake at the memory of enjoying it.
For an unsettling length of time, I really liked Rush.
The Black Stallion. Re-reading it as an adult, I was appalled at how astonishingly thin the racial allegories in that series of novels are. Shudder.
Also, Shogun, which I read several times at around the age of 9 / 10.
A movie I'm embarrassed to have liked--all the more so because I finally made Mr. B. see it a few years ago, swearing up and down it was great--is Harold and Maude. Jesus, what pap the movie is.
I hereby humiliate myself.
I used to know the woman who trained the horse in the Black Stallion mocie. She's now an MD.
I also met one of the ex-Lassies -- Lassie VII I think. They're all guys, and all fixed. They put them out to retirement pretty early.
Lassie was a perfectly normal dog, not stuck up at all.
Racial allegories in The Black Stallion? I thought it was just horses. I'll have to read it again someday so I can be embarrassed about it.
I loved Robert Heinlein's early books about space cadets and Mars colonies and so on. Embarrassment enough for anyone! Although I never liked Stranger in a Strange Land, I'm happy to say. I also loved the Hardy Boys.
What's wrong with Elric? A bit doomy and portentous, but that won't kill you. Or Lloyd Alexander and his Prydain books -- those were quite good, nothing embarrassing about them. No worse than Tolkien.
A book that I took seriously and shouldn't have (this was age 15): Mailer's Miami and the Siege of Chicago. I reread it a few years back and it's sludge.
I also read Advertisements for Myself many times as a kid, but I don't think it did me any harm. Various misimpressions regarding intercourse derived from "The Time of Her Time" were soon cleared up by the real thing.
But a commenter clarifies an important point here: "More interesting are those books to which one commits one's youthful self-identity, for a time: 'This is the adult world I will enter! This is how it works!' "
For me that was no book, that was Woody Allen's Annie Hall. I did think adult life would be like that, and now I resent the film for its misleading egocentricity and triteness. The one benefit is I get to feel superior to the many people who don't see what a pretentious would-be talent Woody Allen is.
We watched Annie Hall in my latin class.
Piers Anthony at least started off writing promising and well-regarded stuff (_Macroscope_) before turning into an amusing YA hack then a hack.
_Elric_'s by a nearly heavyweight (Guardian Fiction prize winner, Whitbread shortlist, ...) author - maybe it's a derivative genre piece, but consciously so.
When I was about 15 I was really into _Goedel, Escher, Bach_ - don't know if that has aged well.
_Goedel, Escher, Bach_ - don't know if that has aged well
Yes.
kyle doesn't have a soul, or seems to have misplaced it at the time he stopped admiring Annie Hall.
I was really into Hemingway. I probably thought his sentences encapsulated the good life. Which meant you had to be both stoic and ironical at all times, and drink a lot without getting very drunk. I failed to notice that he shot himself in the head.
I couldn't get a rise out of anyone at CT for my suggestion of Robert Cormier. Do I have to go all "Flowers for Algernon" on you?
Embarrassing art-rock enthusiasms are legion. I'm so glad Atrios stopped using modified Yes lyrics for the open threads, because they were giving me flashbacks. And that's far from the worst of it.
Elric_'s by a nearly heavyweight (Guardian Fiction prize winner, Whitbread shortlist, ...) author
And Blue Öyster Cult collaborator. Which only adds to the humiliation.
Raymond Chandler on Hemingway, filtered through Marlowe (scroll past the Rembrandt and Shakespeare).
What about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
Did The Chocolate War involve some kid who learned he'd been kidnapped? Or was that some other Robert Cormier?
I don't think either Elric or Prydain should be embarassing (meaning, I enjoyed both myself).
What would be embarassing is if anyone would admit to having read and enjoyed John Norman's Gor series.
26: Wasn't that I Am the Cheese? I think in The Chocolate War some kid refuses to take part in the chocolate-selling fundraiser and eventually everyone beats him up.
We are not supposed to perceive that the kid deserves it. As I remember it, that's the problem with Cormier.
I do not actually approve of or endorse beating up high-school existentialists who need to get over themselves. I myself was one. It may be good to have been one. But it should still be humiliating in retrospect, because one does indeed need to get over oneself.
I have to admit I still do like a good Nick Adams story. I also liked Stephen King a lot, before the Dark Tower stuff. Was pretty proud of myself when I finished IT.
I'm going to beat the crap out of Weiner at the APA.
Is J.D. Salinger is embarrassing, in retrospect? Speaking of high school existentialism.
I don't think Salinger is embarrassing. To a certain extent, everyone's adolescence is embarrassing. Your response to Salinger might embarrass you, but then your resposne to anything at that age would embarrass you.
I remember thinking R.W. Emerson (to distinguish between our own Emerson) was teh suxx when I was sixteen or so, but it was probably I and not Ralph Waldo who was teh suxx.
shouldn't the title of this post be "humiliate self for the amusement of others?" And shouldn't that be the Unfogged motto?
Wait, the kid in The Chocolate War deserved to get beat up? I thought the whole point of that was that the rest of the school had turned this fundraiser (a good thing, ideally) into some test of moral worth and bragging rights (bad), and the kid wanted no part of it. And got beat up. Good doesn't triumph over evil, etc. A good change of pace from most children's books, but we're supposed to think that what happened to the kid was pretty fucked up, right?
I would like to read Flowers for Algernon In The Attic.
40: Yes, as I remember (and I haven't read it since high school at least) that's what happens. And that's the retrospective criticism of Cormier--it's all about romanticizing the Brave Lonely Kid who Thinks For Himself and gets Beat Up by the Conformist Hordes. Whereas if you don't want to participate in the chocolate fundraiser, that's fine (I hated them), but you're not really a martyr. The Cormier books seemed really cool and deep because they had unhappy endings, but you're better of reading Moominvalley in November.
Becks- That reminds me of this CT thread.
I think the thing I feel more embarrassed or guilty about nowadays is books I did not read than about those I read, to tell the truth. Especially about that subset that I claimed to have read though I had not. I might achieve trifecta for a book that I did not read, claimed to have, and was cringe-worthy to recall having dug -- I think the only actual element of this intersection might be Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy. But everything about my eighteenth year of life is heavily layered with sarcasm and bad faith -- I cannot tell from the perspective of these 17 years how sincerely I did anything.
The profoundly silly newsletter from these deeply unpleasant people. The best was after the LA riots when, instead of calling it a riot, they kept referring to it as a "spontaneous redistribution of wealth."
Which, I suppose, was pretty accurate, but still.
44 - Good link. Fontana of course pwns with Are You There, Godot? It's Me, Margaret.
Herman Hesse, anyone?
Steppenwolf!
I felt bad because I couldn't make myself read Magister Ludi, but in retrospect I think it was a good thing.
Now I'm really embarrassed.
I carried Steppenwolf around in high school, as if I was reading it. Does that count?
Don't all of these books fail because they earnestly (o-earnestly?) proffer a purportedly coherent worldview? Isn't the real point that there is only entertainment one can enjoy without embarrasment: Seinfeld?
I carried Steppenwolf around in high school, as if I was reading it. Does that count?
I did that with Derrida. I was always aready about to begin reading.
Isn't the real point that there is only entertainment one can enjoy without embarrasment: Seinfeld?
No.
Also, 51 - 50 = 1, which is the edit distance between "proffer" and "reproof".
To the author of 51, I say: humpf.
But secretly I was thinking "this book is too thick."
do we have a working definition for o-earnest? Does it mean "earnest in a bad way," or "what ogged means when he uses the term earnest?" Or perhaps those are really the same definition?
This needs to be fleshed out.
damn you, silence crickets! stop limning me.
Also, 51 - 50 = 1, which is the edit distance between "proffer" and "reproof".
I don't get it. Should I be embarrassed about that?
A related class of books to what I was talking about in 45, would be those I read fully or partially but without at all getting, and then spoke of as part of my repertoire -- perhaps the principal instance of this class, is Sartre's "Being and Nothingness", of which I read about a quarter and understood not a word.
53: It's your chance to do the dance they call the humpf.
do we have a working definition for o-earnest?
I think it does mean "earnest in a bad way". Nothing wrong with earnestness in general (ogged's objections duly noted). Perhaps it could mean something along the lines of "trying too hard to make an obvious (or simplistic) point".
sorry, SB.
'Salright. One calls one's comment number at one's peril. I say to you: fpmuh.
A related class of books to what I was talking about in 45, would be those I read fully or partially but without at all getting,
But it made us feel so smartre.
damn you, silence crickets! stop limning me.
text, this sentence implies (presupposes? Matt will correct me) that you are of one being with (a particular extent of) silence.
yup. but it was more fun than writing "silence crickets, stop limning the silence resulting from my comments, which in turn, reflects poorly upon those comments and myself."
#48, mcdc: Great adolescent minds, lockstep in the wrong direction.
More embarassing? Dating a wanna-be French rock star whose band was named after a Hesse novel. By then I really should have known better.
a wanna-be French rock star whose band was named after a Hesse novel.
Named in French translation? Let's see, Steppenwolf was taken... anyway, up to around thirty, frenchness will trump common sense every time.
Humiliating: I decided to read Animal Farm when I was, I think, 9 or 10. My father thought this a bit peculiar. When I finished it, he asked me if I had understood it. "Of course I understood it!" was my indignant reply. I recounted the plot for him. He just said 'ok', and, I guess, decided not to burst my bubble. When I read it again about 5 years later, I was like 'oh'.
Silvana -- you mean at 15 you got the Christian allegory, Snowdrop-as-Christ-figure subtext of the Animal Farm rebellion?
(I was 12 before it dawned on me that Aslan was really Winston Churchill.)
No, Elric doesn't count, childish tastes when you are a child are acceptable. I for instance read all of Harold Robbins cover-to-cover multiple times, which was an admirable activitity for pubescent males in the mid-sixties.
60: I first checked out Ulysses from the library when I was 12, and carried a copy with me until I was 28, at which time I finally read the book. There were crosscountry hitching trips with two shirts, a pair of socks, a space-blanket, and Ulysses. Entire libraries and record collections came and went to used book stores for rent, but Ulysses remained. Finally in the late 70s, after having read the entire works of Thomas Mann in order of publication, I felt I had learned how to read.
That is too revealing, and embarrassing.
I tried to read Huckleberry Finn when I was 8 or 9 but gave up pretty quickly.
"(i) many people have mentioned Ayn Rand, but I was lucky enough to delay my first encounter with that stuff (in the form of The Fountainhead) until I was old enough to see pretty clearly that it's just terrible."
Ditto; I was 15. (It may have helped that -- I forget just now if it was The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, but whichever, I read it all in the course of one 14-hour stint of intestinal distress, in my girlfriend's bathroom I got to leave only sporadically, until I had concluded both intake and outtake.)
"Gary Stu."
Interesting. I well recall when only a few hundred of us knew who Mary Sue was; it shouldn't surprise me that the theory has grown considerably more elaborate.
"I loved Robert Heinlein's early books about space cadets and Mars colonies and so on. Embarrassment enough for anyone!"
How so?
"The one benefit is I get to feel superior to the many people who don't see what a pretentious would-be talent Woody Allen is."
I certainly wouldn't recommend Annie Hall as an insightful or revelatory guide to typical adult life, and, of course, common opinion for many years has been to declaim his fall from true funnyness (I tend to take a rather more nuanced view, film by film; for instace, I'd certainly argue for there being plenty of value to be found in, say, Sweet And Lowdown, or even Deconstructing Harry, but tastes are always subjective, of course), but I'd have to say that calling the guy who did Annie Hall, Love And Death, Hannah And Her Sisters, Manhattan, and a fair number of other works, a "would-be talent" is a bit silly. But mileage varies.
"To a certain extent, everyone's adolescence is embarrassing."
I think that will often have a lot more to do with these sort of reactions than the works involved, myself. For one thing, it's only embarrassing depending upon how seriously you took the work in question, and that's something you bring to the question, not that the book (or movie or band or whatever) brings.
Here's a rock band ultimately called Demien, but they're not French and about JM's parents' age.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_Puppy
There's a Slovenian Siddharta band. I don't think Google is going to help us find JM's beau.
See, my Annie Hall experience was that my parents took me to see it at some extremely young age and I thought it was hilarious, mostly on the strength of the spider in the bathroom and the lobsters in the kitchen. I told one of my elementary school teachers it was my favorite movie, and she was shocked. Then I saw it again many years later and went, "oh."
"I loved Robert Heinlein's early books about space cadets and Mars colonies and so on. Embarrassment enough for anyone!"
How so?
For a girl, to remember my failure to see the manly manliness of the coming-of-age stories and how it was oppressin' me is kind of embarrassing.
By extension, does that mean that Churchill is Christ?
He's the lion-christ. I'm totally going to put a Churchill poster in my dorm-room. Churchill teaches us that drunken misogyny is ok. The man saved freedom (indicating that he must have been a conservative) and the fact that he was a drunken misogynyst entails that my frat is righteous. Therefore Reagan was a genius, and all is good in the world. Suck my cock.
I'd have to say, or agree, that the notion that one should be embarrassed as an adult for the fact that one's tastes as a kid, or pre-adolescent, or adolescent, are apt to have changed somewhat, is more than a little questionable.
The one comment that somewhat bothers me in the CT thread is the assertion that kids may not have enough scientific education to understand why Erich von Daniken was insanely ludicrous; it's certainly a true assertion, but the fact that it's true is as alarming as is the general lack of grasp of basic science in the general populace is. I mean, I read von Dankiken at 7 or so, and observed that it was obvious nonsense. It wasn't very compatible with, say, George Gamow. Or Newton. And wasn't very interesting compared to any number of texts I was reading, be it Scientific American, or Arthur C. Clarke.
I find it interesting how nearly universal the number of citing in the CT threads of works of sf and fantasy are made, some far more flawed than others. Not at all surprising, though. It's not news how many adults still find the genres embarrassing. (How many folks are bothered, in contrast, that Sherlock Holmes is no less of a complete fantasy, or Nero Wolfe, or that neither cozy mysteries nor hardboiled are any more "realistic"? Not so many, it appears.)
I told one of my elementary school teachers it was my favorite movie, and she was shocked.
because you forgot to mention the sneezing-in-the-coke scene, prolly.
"I told one of my elementary school teachers it was my favorite movie, and she was shocked."
Shocked? (Among my biases here is my quasi-non-relationship with Allan Stewart Koenigsberg, which I've written about a jillion times, which doesn't mean that anyone here has necessary seen such, which is that he grew up literally around the corner from me [on Ave. K and East 12th St., in Midwood; I was on East 10th, between J & K], twenty years earlier than I did, and we nonetheless had two elementary school teachers in common, and two high school teachers, at P.S. 99 and Midwood H.S.; so his milieu was, although earlier than mine, fairly similar; so, fair disclosure).
If it were, perhaps, Deconstructing Harry with a blow-job scene on a blind man, I might not be surprised. But what was shocking, or even terribly adult-understandable-only, about Annie Hall, a move that while deeper than, say, Bananas, isn't wildly more difficult to follow, or shocking.
"Churchill teaches us that drunken misogyny is ok."
Please, that's drunken racist misogyny. Although I'd lean towards the view that he teaches us that we can do good things despite having bad aspects and also doing bad things. I imagine no one ever thought of that one before, though.
(How many folks are bothered, in contrast, that Sherlock Holmes is no less of a complete fantasy, or Nero Wolfe, or that neither cozy mysteries nor hardboiled are any more "realistic"? Not so many, it appears.)
I'm kind of embarrassed about all the Nero Wolfe stories I read. I'm not embarrassed by Sherlock Holmes. The embarrassing thing about a lot of bad science fiction I loved as an adolescent was its wish-fulfilling quality and the callowness of the wishes it attempted to fulfill. The disguises were so thin, the desperation so great.
I dislike seeing drunkennes lumped in with misogyny and racism.
I'm flat-out disturbed by the SF/Fantasy concentration in the CT thread and think it shows how unseriously people took the assignment. OMG, at 13, I thought the punny silliness of Piers Anthony's Xanth (slash Robert Jordan slash David Eddings etc.) totally absorbing and now I know it's stupid, and OMG, how unsophisticated I was at 13! I don't know whether Heinlein should go in that category, since as a teen, I couldn't finish him.
The text that fucking changed my life as a teenager? Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Today I am better able to recognize that I misunderstood almost everything about Blake and what he was up to, but sure: Anne McCaffrey is a lot easier to make fun of.
John Emerson: I said that my beau was a wanna-be rockstar, didn't I? He has since returned to acting, and, as I last heard, he is now actually making a living at that. That episode was many years ago, now.
I now regret that, as a teen, I misread Nietzsche in such a way as to lead me to kill several of my schoolmates.
But you learned from the experience, right?
jm,
The embarrassment we'll admit to is just to distract from the actually embarrassing embarrassments.
I'm kind of embarrassed about all the Nero Wolfe stories I read. I'm not embarrassed by Sherlock Holmes.
That should be reversed, no?
to distract from the actually embarrassing embarrassments
I thought that was sort of the whole point of "life of the mind".
"For a girl, to remember my failure to see the manly manliness of the coming-of-age stories and how it was oppressin' me is kind of embarrassing."
Fair enough. Although why one should be expected to have the same political sensibilities (or any other sort of sensibilities) at age 8 or 12 or 14 or whatever, as at 25 or 32 or whatever, I don't follow. (And, again, the embarrassment seems to derive from one's own expectations about one's self, rather than directly from the work; if one simply looks at the work and says, well, here are its virtues and here are its flaws and omisssions, after all, what's to be embarrassed about?)
Just out of curiosity, what early Heinlein do you think of as having much "manly manliness"? Certainly, I think Podkayne of Mars tonally has always bothered many of us, and we'll try to avoid discussing the late, post Moon Is A Harsh Mistress work, but neither of those fits well with a reference to "I loved Robert Heinlein's early books about space cadets and Mars colonies and so on.." Okay, Podkayne might; but the tonal problems aren't really about "manly manliness" in any way that's clear to me. (Specifically, you're referring to the Scribner juveniles, of which Podkayne was technically not one, although it would have been the last if it hadn't been rejected by Alice Dagliesh.)
Re-reading it as an adult, I was appalled at how astonishingly thin the racial allegories in that series of novels are.
I never do this, but I haven't read to the end of the thread yet. Really!?! I read about a million of those, down to the Black Stallion's Great-Aunt Maude (describing her suspenseful victory in a shuffleboard tournament), and while I don't remember them with any clarity at all, I also don't remember any racial element, text or subtext. Did I just miss it completely? (I suppose at seven or eight I could have read right past a Stephin Fetchit accent without processing it.)
"I'm kind of embarrassed about all the Nero Wolfe stories I read. "
Okay. I'm not embarrassed by all the Rex Stout Nero Wolfe's you, I mean I've read (I've not read any non-Stout Wolfe). They're certainly not badly written. They do what they came to do, and did it well; they've amused and entertained millions of people. They're not the most beautiful prose ever written, nor offering of greatly deeper pleasures, but is that the standard of what we're embarrassed to enjoy?
But perhaps you could say more about why they, or your having read them, embarrasses you? As part of that, although Doyle, of course, created the paradigm, when you also say that "I'm not embarrassed by Sherlock Holmes," what virtues are you finding in Doyle that act as embarrassment-off from those of Stout? It can't simply be age. Do you discern some sort of "more worthwhile" literary virtues in Doyle? Or what?
I'm embarrassed by the Agatha Christie I read.
And while I read pretty much everything that anyone's described as embarrassing, I can't say that I'm embarrassed by much of it. (Heinlein, check. Ayn Rand, check (anyone else think that there was a perfectly reasonable design critic spoiled there?). Nero Wolfe, check (Archie is fairly high on the list of literary characters who Mr. Breath has cause to worry about.) Elric, check. Sherlock Holmes, check. All right, Piers Anthony really does suck.) But I'm not getting the embarrassment here -- this is all entertainment. What's to be embarrassed about? You liked what you liked. (And I liked most of what I've ever read. Indiscriminate -- that's me.)
Crossposted with Gary, who, as often, I'm agreeing with. If you're going to get all 'too cool for school' about fiction, I can come up with reasons that absolutely anything is pretty shameful to admit you enjoyed. Nothing's perfect, but lots of imperfect stuff is fun, and that's what it's all for.
Just out of curiosity, what early Heinlein do you think of as having much "manly manliness"?
Trapped! okay, GaryFarber, my recollections are quite (haw!) nebulous. But I do remember the twins, one of whom left earth on a faster than light spaceship, and came back when his brother was a decrepit old man to find that women didn't wear hats at the table...but mainly what bothers me in retrospect is that it (juvenile science fiction) seemed to be always about the boys, and the girls were generally sidekicks or ornaments or whatever, but if I wanted interestin adventures, I had to put up with that, thus making me wish I was a boy so I could have interestin adventures, and reinforcing my internalized misogyny, etc, etc, etc. Girls in the meantime were invited to enjoy the none-too-interesting adventures of Beanie Malone et al., which were all about Relationships. I'd totally forgotten Podkayne of Mars. Is that the one where the kids spend the night inside the giant cabbage?
I get the feeling nobody clicked on my link. My dignity and I thank you.
SB -- are you saying you're embarrassed about having liked the writings of Mr. Limbaugh as a young lad or lass? That would make you younger than I had figured you for.
"All right, Piers Anthony really does suck."
In his early days, I feel compelled to note that he had ambitions as a writer. Macroscope is one giant mess of a semi-failed novel, but it did try hard.
I find it hard to talk much about Anthony, because fairness would compel me to disclose the many novels of his I've worked on, mostly when I was a boy editorlet at Avon Books, and then start talking about various other background stuff, which is pretty much a problem I have with an overwhelming number of modern sf/fantasy writers; John Cole just asked me in e-mail a day or three ago whether I was a "George R. R. Martin fan," and I had to start explaining that I've known George since circa 1973, and that we have enough passing personal stuff under the water that I was never going to be able to approach his stuff that way.
But let's just say that Piers has a number of children, and understandably concluded that making sure he could make them happy, and see them through to college, was an important goal; and he doesn't have another day job. (This consideration also arose with an arguably better writer I can also testify to personal knowledge of, Roger Zelazny, though to a considerably less degree.)
Non-sequitur, I might clarify that for all my various "what's to be embarrassed about" observations above, I certainly amn't oblivious to the simple emotional reaction of looking at something one once really liked, and concluding that it was really quite awful in ways that didn't bother us then, but do now. I'm just distinguishing, or trying to, between an understandable emotional response, and what's possibly actually rationally defensible about it.
SB, I assumed it was not a serious link. Or, if it was, it added so much to your mystery as to be overwhelming.
younger than I had figured you for
Jeremy, we are all of us 47 year old balding men.
I read pretty good books when I was young, but the quality of the pornography available in 1962 was really low.
But perhaps you could say more about why they, [Nero Wolfe] or your having read them, embarrasses you?
In this case, it's not so much the quality of the books as my reaction to them that is retrospectively embarrassing (okay, not really that embarrassing). I think they were the first adult popular fiction I read as a child, and I truly thought they were a glimpse into the way grownups actually think and interact. I still remember finding Might as Well Be Dead on the bookshelf. It was a Viking paperback and I misread the title as "Might as Well Be Dead, Viking" which I thought was weird but I was into Vikings, so I started to read it and found it riveting.
I never thought the Holmes stories were realistic, but for a while I thought New York was full of homicidal millionaires and smooth gumshoes, and sophisticated ladies who went dancing with them at the Flamingo.
It's not? Fine. Shatter my illusions.
Eventually I will have enough mystery to can it and sell it in the seasonal aisle of the supermarket. It will keep Libby's Pumpkin company when it is lonley, which is always.
quality of the pornography available in 1962 was really low
But by 1965 there was already too much for Charles Keating.
For me, the most humiliating books which I won't name were trendy bits of very bad political and legal theory from the early 90s. For that, I blame my professors. The most humiliating works of fiction that I idolized were probably the Kundera books that I was completely obsessed with from the ages of 17-19. In fairness to me, the books were pretty dirty, although not in the least bit sexy, and I wasn't exactly very experienced in such things back then. Wait, maybe that's the humiliating part of this story.
It was a Viking paperback and I misread the title as "Might as Well Be Dead, Viking" which I thought was weird but I was into Vikings
Awesome.
"the twins,"
Time For The Stars.
"but mainly what bothers me in retrospect is that it (juvenile science fiction) seemed to be always about the boys, "
Well, sure, but while one can note various exceptions from the Fifties and earlier (Catherine.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry, Leigh Brackett, Ursula Le Guin was being publishec by 1962, and so on, not to mention arguably feminist work by Ted Sturgeon and other men) , this certainly begun to change by the Sixties, and then we had the whole Great Feminist Explosion/revolution in sf by the late Sixties and ever-more-so in the Seventies (Joanna Russ, my old pal, Vonda McIntyre, ditto, Lizzy Lynn, Suzy Charnas, the list is long.)
More to the point, this sexism in pre-Sixties sf, is hardly blameable on Robert Heinlein, who, if anything, rather stood out in the context of the times for having strong female characters. Peewee in Have Spacesuit, Will Travel was a secondary character to the main boy protagonist, but only barely so, and was portrayed as vastly brighter than he was. The fact is that Alice Dagliesh wouldn't have bought a book about a female protagonist, and in all frankness, that decision would could at least be slightly defended on the single ground that most buyers and readers of science fiction in the fifties were male. I would never say that such decisions should be defended, or justify them, but there's a partial element of chicken-and-egg to the sexism-in-old-science-fiction question. But, bottom line, Robert Heinlein wasn't responsible for sexism in science fiction, even if his dialogue by I Will Fear No Evil and later works became embarrassing. But even then his women characters only came out more up front than he was allowed to do in earlier work, as a rule.
But even the women in the Scribner juvenile The Rolling Stones/The Family Stone were all super-competent geniuses, as pretty much all of Heinlein's women were.
"Is that the one where the kids spend the night inside the giant cabbage?"
No, that's Red Planet. There was a fairly awful and unfaithful animated version made back in the Eighties or so, alas. Fortunately, relatively few have seen it.
Anyway, I would never want to minimize the seriousness of sexism in old sf (or say every last bit has been scrubbed out today, any more than we can say that of anything), but I'd simply like it to be seen as part of the context of the times; it's not as if science fiction or science fiction juveniles, were more guilty of sexism than any other literature, or aspect of our culture, of the day, and arguably was frequently leading our culture way in begining to work our way past that.
And I have no objection at all to beating up on Robert Heinlein's real literary failings and flaws; I just like to see it done accurately, rather than in any sort of vague guilt-by-association or "it's an easy laugh if you don't actually really know the work" kind of way.
I think most sentiments benefit from the addition of a viking.
Archie is fairly high on the list of literary characters who Mr. Breath has cause to worry about.
The non-creepy blog crush is so back on, LB.
I think most sentiments benefit from the addition of a viking.
As viking cocksucker an observation as there ever was.
I think most sentiments benefit from the addition of a viking.
Except bon voyage.
"Jeremy, we are all of us 47 year old balding men."
I wouldn't say I was anywhere near "balding" yet. Thinning, absolutely, and greying, and receding. But not yet balding.
47 since November 5th, though.
"It was a Viking paperback and I misread the title as "Might as Well Be Dead, Viking" which I thought was weird but I was into Vikings, so I started to read it and found it riveting."
Well, that's probably why millions of people have loved Stout for all these years. Because they were splendid, amusing, highly accessible, stories. (Mostly; they weren't all gold, of course.) Have you tried reading any in recent years and found yourself throwing them against a wall? (It's not as if, frankly, I couldn't understand why someone might be embarrassed at a later date to have beloved Xanth or Pern a bit strongly, although they were all far too late in my life for me to have ever gone there; I certainly love lots of really badly written stuff from the Forties and Thirties, or even earlier pulps, though, for reasons other than that they are badly written, but because of their other virtues. Sometimes it's also not clear whether people are seeing a work in the context of its times well or not. One wouldn't read E. E. Smith's The Skylark of Space for either its writing, or its modern science fiction ideas, but it was written between 1915-20, after all; I couldn't recommend it today other than as of historical interest, or to someone young, or of just the right mind-set, but that doesn't mean it wasn't, er, seminally important to the genre in its time. (Although speaking of sexism, Smith had his neighbor and friend, Lee Hawkins Garby, "help him out" in that first book, so as to get the "love interest" bits "right"; now, there was writing about "manly men," when ya talk E. E. "Doc" Smith. And the contrast that Heinlein brought was revolutionary, in many ways, including how much better he handled female characters; to get Heinlein, it helps to be familiar with the milieu of sf in 1938, when he started.)
That entire site (of your link) doesn't seem to be available at the momet, by the way.
Did Standpipe read the book to which Standpipe linked, or did Standpipe write the book to which Standpipe linked?
"That entire site (of your link) doesn't seem to be available at the momet, by the way."
Wrong blog thread. Never mind.
As viking cocksucker an observation as there ever was.
We have a new cocksucker corrolary, I believe. For even fiercer awesomeness.
Speaking of 117, where's Chopper?
Actually, I'm not embarrassed by the Heinlein SF I read when I was a kid--I still think The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a pretty good book, silly-ass libertarianism and all.
But I am really embarrassed to admit that I read Heinlein's nonfiction...
I am a naturally-hairy 59 year old man.
The secret?
Something you can't buy in a store: low testosterone.
Now embarrassed to be such a snob, but proud to think I may have contributed a new ramification to an Unfogged in-joke. It's not just cocksucker, it's viking cocksucker!
Also I now have to read "Have Spacesuit Will Travel".
Hell, I had a complete collection of "Doc Savage" paperbacks. And I loved Podkayne.
As far as Piers Anthony, I remember his very interesting early work, yet do not at all begrudge his move to more commercial material. Since I spent most of Friday night looking for material on Lafferty, Harness, and especially George Alec Effinger. I don't need to pick up Malzberg to be depressed about the field.
I'm really tempted to sit out this thread but...in high school, I scoffed at the Hesse readers because he's just Nietzsche-lite, but I though Kahlil Gibran was awesome.
Fuck you all for reading that--this comment never happened.
I'm really tempted to sit out this thread but...in high school, I scoffed at the Hesse readers because he's just Nietzsche-lite, but I though Kahlil Gibran was awesome.
Fuck you all for reading that--this comment never happened.
I'm really tempted to sit out this thread but...in high school, I scoffed at the Hesse readers because he's just Nietzsche-lite, but I though Kahlil Gibran was awesome.
Fuck you all for reading that--this comment never happened.
What he says three times is true.
Hey, wow, someone should really look into that problem.
but I though Kahlil Gibran was awesome.
Not basketball again. Ugh.
"Also I now have to read "Have Spacesuit Will Travel"."
Keep in mind before you look for it that when I referred to Pee-wee as a strong female character, that she was, like, ten years old. Of course, Kip is just in high school, himself. Hey, these are juveniles; that was the premise.
It's very dated, in many ways, as are all the Heinlein juvies. It was major science-fictionally boggling in his stories when people would pull their phone out of their pocket or bag; that sort of thing, for one. And Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, was one of his slightly odder juveniles; it went off a bit further-afield in a rather more literally Out There space-operaish sort of way than pretty much any of his other novels, until the mess that is The Number Of The Beast, arguably.
So it's hard for me to recommend, or not, the Heinlein juveniles to someone today, particularly the younger they are, without, at least, having some idea of how they deal with that whole "need to see things in historical context" issue that I mentioned above. On the one hand, the Heinlein juveniles are, overall, classics of the genre (some more than others, to be sure; the first couple were a bit more simplistic, particularly the first, whose plot is, yes, somewhat embarrassing to describe); but they're definitely a different future history than our future, and they were of their time. This is a good piece by Adam Troy-Castro on HSWT, if anyone is interested. I agree with his assessment.
SB: the best!
Thanks!
I don't care if it's evil. I so do not regret putting the mind-control in the reservoir.
"And I loved Podkayne." You'd have voted to let her live, I guess? (Baen Books did an edition some years ago and held a vote as to whether to go with the published ending, or the unpublished version that Heinlein originally wrote, in which he knocked her off. [Um, spoilers for the entire book, to put it mildly].)
"Since I spent most of Friday night looking for material on Lafferty, Harness, and especially George Alec Effinger. I don't need to pick up Malzberg to be depressed about the field."
Charless Harness is a bit obscure these days, I'm afraid, particularly given that there still aren't all that many old fanzines online, despite the efforts at fanac.org. But Piglet/Effinger should be far less so. Lafferty was the only god I've ever met who was also an amazingly alcoholic little old man. Barry Malzberg is merely a much unappreciated prophet (and he also terribly damaged his career by taking far too many contracts in rapid succession, just because they were suddenly on offer, even if they money for each one wasn't much -- the usual few grand -- and it was entirely understandable; Ron Goulart also took the poison pills; unfortunately, being a writer is also something of a business). But I'm, overall, a big fan of both Barry's fiction and nonfiction, even if he repeated himself a bit much in his dying astronaut period. (In a different sort of way, I also admire Ron, actually; he's done endless terrific research into old radio shows, pulps, and comments, and in person in my limited experience, one of the funniest people I've ever met; much more so than even his funniest books (some of which were, unfortunately, not so funny, but that's that whole repeating yourself with a succession of similar books in a short period of time thing, again.) And, no, I never met Charless Harness or had direct contact with him! :-)
"The embarrassing thing about a lot of bad science fiction I loved as an adolescent was its wish-fulfilling quality and the callowness of the wishes it attempted to fulfill."
I left out my thought here, which runs along the lines of, so you're saying that adolescents are callow? But, you know, I'd want to say it in a gentle and kind way.
Yes, there's definitely a ton of callow and shallow wish-fulfillment in much -- though certainly not all -- science fiction and fantasy. In particular, much popular sf has featured themes of persecuted smart people, particularly persecuted, unappreciated, smart kids.
But I'm unconvinced this is anything to be embarrassed about. If anyone could use some wish-fufillment, well, actually, there are plenty of other candidates than unappreciated smart kids, but not so many who would find and obtain books that make their lives seem a little less hopeless and miserable and totally not understood!
I think that's a good thing, overall, that there are books and stories that provide that support and wish-fulfillment fantasy, and such callow messages as that it's okay to be different and it's okay to be smart, and you are not alone, while also providing some pleasure and thrills and sense of wonder at the possibilities of this and other universes, and maybe even some crunchy knowledge, or cool ideas, besides, like sprinkles. (Sometimes a bit deeper.)
That we won't have identical emotional needs at age 30 as age 13 doesn't change my mind.
(It's when stories ever lean past "it's okay and good to be smart" into "you are a better person simply by virtue of being smarter" that I start to become disturbed, but that's because I was alarmingly prone to such nasty thinking when I was a screwed-up adolescent.)
"I don't need to pick up Malzberg to be depressed about the field."
I'm pretty out of touch with the field these days, relatively speaking, but I'm pretty sure there's a ton of good stuff coming out, just as there always has been every time I've read someone explain how depressed they are about the current field since I first started reach that plaint circa 1966 or so. Certainly there have been shitloads of great sf and fantasy books published in the last ten years.
I don't know man, I am still embarrassed. I was deep into SF 65-75, and picking up Fourth Mansions(title alludes to Theresa of Avila) and Wolves of Memory and Herovit's World and the New Dimension series and stuff even Gary probably hasn't heard of (Volteface? James Sallis? Still got em.) off the store shelves and thinkin this was really good and interesting stuff. And Aldiss was maybe self-indulgent when he ripped off Jealousy but I didn't think Robbe-Grillet was all that superior and when Aldiss and the field went back to stuff like Helliconia Summer I said why bother and stopped reading.
I tried a year or so ago to turn Holbo onto Lafferty because that is really the kind of reader Lafferty needs but he couldn't be bothered. It is SF. Old. Idiosyncratic understates. Written by an Catholic electrical engineer who rarely left Tulsa. Few read it then, few now, few ever will.
That was my youth. I read a bunch of certifiable polymath geniuses who were attempting to write ambitious literature in a quasi-genre format. Now most are out of print and forgotten, while Turtledove makes millions. I was a fool.
Gary I just got depressed by Effinger's obituaries. Really, really depressed.
Don't be depressed, Bob; you're steadily edging out for my favorite cranky-uncle-commmenter despite stiff competition.
And Gary, of course you know of James Sallis, he has become all famous. I just swear I have a pb from around 1970 novel of his that isn't listed on any bibliography. One of these boxes, somewhere, something about a torture machine.
Coming back from SF to see how this thread has grown, I feel all of a sudden like a certain wise yeti who sometimes comments here.
"I just got depressed by Effinger's obituaries. Really, really depressed."
That's entirely understandable. Following his life was all too depressing. I first met him at the 1973 Lunacon, where Guest of Honor Harlan Ellison "moderated" a panel of "new writers" (as they were then), Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann, and George Alec Effinger; we never had much direct contact, and I wouldn't expect him to remember me (although I'm often surprised by who does, as we saw here the other night; you could have knocked me over with a toothpick when Pat Cadigan swore up and down to my face when we first met in Britain some years ago how "oh, everyone knows you, Gary!," because we'd never had an atom's worth of contact, and I'd have sworn she didn't know me from a [insert preferred metaphor here]), but we had a number of good mutual friends, so news of his innumerable travails was not infrequent.
Excellent writer; not such a great life, though, sadly. (There tended to be themes of endless illness, poverty, and alcoholism, is the short version for those who don't know; unfortunately, I can name too many other good writers, and some not so good, I've known with not dissimilar stories; and, of course, this does fulfill one stereotype of some writers, but it's a stereotype because of the kernel of truth.)
"James Sallis?"
I hope you're not implying I shouldn't know from James Sallis?
"And Gary, of course you know of James Sallis, he has become all famous." Has he? I read him in New Worlds, of course, circa 1968. And Orbit, and Again, Dangerous Visions, and so on. These weren't hardly obscure works, but among the most prestigious forums in the field at the time, after all. (I see he has an excellent, interesting look back here; I commend it to the attention of all.) (One reason I get cranky at the ignorant dismissals of sf as if it were all E. E. Smith or worse is that you'd have to think the whole New Wave never happened to think that. Though if we're having an obscure-off, did you ever notice J. J. Pierce? [Not to be confused with his father, John R.] (Or we could play with people published in Orbit, or even Quark, as well as the many permutations of New Worlds.) (I have no idea how familiar Fontana Labs is with Meester Moorcock's career, beyond Elric, which was some fairly weird shit I never particularly got into myself.)
I have no idea what you're referring to about "Volteface," though. But, anyway, I remember Sallis basically from the late Sixties/early Seventies, and only occasionally noticed him thereafter.
"...Now most are out of print and forgotten,"
Bob, if you could ever be stirred from Texas, I'd highly recommend you give going to Readercon a try. Or even Boskone. Or to Potlatch. There's a whole culture of people who liked -- no, passionately loved, though not everyone all about the same thing, of course, all this stuff, and who still do. And are you familiar with NESFA Press? (Again, disclosure, I go back with most every of the folks involved to at least the early Seventies, or however long they've been around.) And the many other fine sf small presses?
Being in a place where everyone knows the writers we're talking about, and has for decades, might lift your spirits some.
"James Sallis?"
I hope you're not implying I shouldn't know from James Sallis?
"And Gary, of course you know of James Sallis, he has become all famous." Has he? I read him in New Worlds, of course, circa 1968. And Orbit, and Again, Dangerous Visions, and so on. These weren't hardly obscure works, but among the most prestigious forums in the field at the time, after all. (I see he has an excellent, interesting look back here; I commend it to the attention of all.) (One reason I get cranky at the ignorant dismissals of sf as if it were all E. E. Smith or worse is that you'd have to think the whole New Wave never happened to think that. Though if we're having an obscure-off, did you ever notice J. J. Pierce? [Not to be confused with his father, John R.] (Or we could play with people published in Orbit, or even Quark, as well as the many permutations of New Worlds.) (I have no idea how familiar Fontana Labs is with Meester Moorcock's career, beyond Elric, which was some fairly weird shit I never particularly got into myself.)
I have no idea what you're referring to about "Volteface," though. But, anyway, I remember Sallis basically from the late Sixties/early Seventies, and only occasionally noticed him thereafter.
"...Now most are out of print and forgotten,"
Bob, if you could ever be stirred from Texas, I'd highly recommend you give going to Readercon a try. Or even Boskone. Or to Potlatch. There's a whole culture of people who liked -- no, passionately loved, though not everyone all about the same thing, of course, all this stuff, and who still do. And are you familiar with NESFA Press? (Again, disclosure, I go back with most every of the folks involved to at least the early Seventies, or however long they've been around.) And the many other fine sf small presses?
Being in a place where everyone knows the writers we're talking about, and has for decades, might lift your spirits some.
"I tried a year or so ago to turn Holbo onto Lafferty because that is really the kind of reader Lafferty needs but he couldn't be bothered."
As I would with many writers, I'd recommend starting with short stories first, although this wouldn't work for some readers. I'd recommend the collectionNine Hundred Grandmothers to start. Or you could read the title story here, whole, legal, and free. And Slow Tuesday Night here. Those should give a sufficient taste to get a clue as to whether he interests you or not.
There are some fine classic stories legally readable for free and in whole here, by the way. Scott Edelman classed up the "scific.com" operation quite a bit when he was hired, although sadly some of it is coming to an end. You can find the Lafferty stories there indexed here, as Bob presumably knows.
"The site moderator will review your comment soon."
But probably not tonight. Oh, well. Anyway, going to two crucial links, I commend Nine Hundred Grandmothers and Slow Tuesday Night to all, and would certainly be curious as to reactions. (Although those not well-familiar with sf might run into that unfamiliarity with how to read sf problem that's been discussed since least at least Chip Delany's "About 5,750 Words," but arguably back to Heinlein's 1941 Denvention speech.)
So it's hard for me to recommend, or not, the Heinlein juveniles to someone today, particularly the younger they are, without, at least, having some idea of how they deal with that whole "need to see things in historical context" issue that I mentioned above.
I would point out, that the first few books (which mcmc seems be remembering unfondly) were written to be serialized in Boys Life. So they had to be appealing to (white) Boy Scouts of the early 40's and 50's. So, in the first one, Rocket Ship Galileo (which is bad, BTW, very 30's pulpish), his characters are three boys who fly off to the moon to fight...Nazis. (I think he was the first one to use the 'some Nazis escaped WWII via Nazi secret science' motif. Which culminated in They Saved Hitler's Brain. And then had an encore with The Boys From Brazil. Which is a terrible thing to be responsible for in retrospect but fairly inventive for 1947.) Did I mention one of the three boys was Jewish and one of the other two was from a single-parent (female) home? People are reasonably blase about that sort of thing now, but to sneak that into a magazine for Boy Scouts in 1947 should probably be considered actively subversive.
Which brings us to
But I do remember the twins, one of whom left earth on a faster than light spaceship, and came back when his brother was a decrepit old man to find that women didn't wear hats at the table...
Yes. He had a technical problem there. He had to illustrate both Einsteinian relativity and 80 (100?) years of cultural changes in roughly 200 pages. So, at the start the of the book, the position of women in society resembles that of American women of say 1910...and when the protagonist returns it resembles the position of women in society circa 1980-1990 as envisioned by an old white guy in 1955. In a book written ('to order') for Boy Scouts of the 1950's. And all the changes are encapsulated in two paragraphs:
"Instead I started thinking about my re-education, which, I was beginning to realize, was going to have to be extensive; the changes had been more than I bargained for. Take female styles, for example - look, I'm no Puritan, but they didn't dress, if you want to call it that, this way when I was a kid. Girls running around without a thing on their heads, not even on top... heads bare-naked, like an animal. It was good thing Dad hadn't lived to see it. He never let our sisters come to the table without a hat, even if Pat and I were the only unmarried males present."
The fact that you think it's misogynistic (or unbelievable, or whatever) is perfectly sensible, since Heinlein himself thought the same thing. It's one of his fishslap moments. fishslapGIRLS ARE SMART AND CAPABLE, DORKS! fishslap BLACK PEOPLE ARE JUST THE SAME AS YOU fishslapSLAVERY AND SEGREGATION ARE EVIL!
In this case fishslap BOY, THINGS SURE DO CHANGE IN 80 YEARS, HUH?
If you read the juvies now, and pay attention, those moments have become jarring because they don't need to be said anymore, unlike in the 1950's.
If you were going to re/read any of those books, the one you ought to read first would be Tunnel In the Sky.
ash
['I like Carmen.']
Fortunately it's possible to have several cranky uncles. Otherwise McManus and Farber would be in trouble.
I've previously mentioned it in Unfogged threads: Gone With the Wind was my favorite book when I was ten, and for a few years thereafter. It's racist and it has a rape that is treated as unambiguously sexually satisfying for the woman--that's pretty bad. On the other hand, Scarlett does shoot a marauding Yankee (implied potential racist) in the face and grind her bare heel in the wound. She also owns a business despite societal disapproval. But in fact I'm not that embarrassed; I forgive myself for my taste when I was ten. I'm kind of embarrassed by claiming to have loved books I didn't really, like The Once and Future King (12?), and sometimes telling myself I had a deeper emotional reaction to a book than I did (Grapes of Wrath, 13) even when I did genuinely enjoy it. I was into The Clan of the Cave Bear, but I'm pretty sure even at 11 or so I knew just how juvenile it was (I'm not sure if I was hip to the racism.) By the time I was in high school I think my taste was pretty decent: Garp, Tess of the D's, Catch-22, Of Human Bondage, Cuckoo's Nest. I suspect my opinion of Garp and Cuckoo's Nest would go down if I revisited them, but I'm still not embarrassed.
I'm way more embarrassed about all of my actual behavior until, I don't know, maybe two weeks ago.
implied potential racist s/b implied potential rapist
What happened two weeks ago? A mid-life conversion and change of path? Lucky thing you came over to the side of the light before our meet-up, I deal harshly with darklings.
"Osner, Osner and Malloy: dealing harshly with darklings since 1972"
All sorts of embarrassing stuff for me, musicwise and litwise.
I read most of Hesse, though in retrospect I think of him less as embarrassing and more just boring.
At around 14 or 15, I listened a whole lot to the New Age piano player George Winston; I think I found his simplicity sort of startling. I imitated his piano playing style for a time.
I listened to a lot of math metal, even as I embraced the grunge revolution (I was a h.s. freshman in 1991, graduated in 1995, so it all came and went during my tenure).
The qualities I sought out in George Winston led me to Phillip Glass, who I still think is great, but still seems to have only a few ideas that he reuses over and over (and I mean that sincerely, not as a cute joke on his "minimalism").
I went through a big "seeking" period with theology and psychology, though I never dug into the real serious philosophers (this is what happens when you're mostly self-educated, I think). I read some Kant, though, and some Nietzsche. But also nearly everything that Jung ever wrote, along with a number of Jungian psychologists (Marie Louise Von Franz, Edward Edinger and others).
Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale blew my head off when I was a teenager, and I still have fond memories of it and admire a lot of the writing, but he's so distasteful and the book gets kind of ridiculous toward the end, so I've mostly gotten over it.
I also wrote some awful, awful stuff: awful music, awful prose, awful drama. But! I remain convinced that the only way to get to writing good, original stuff is to write awful stuff for a time, so long as it's awful in a unique way (and not, say, a romance novel or something).
In thinking back, I really read and listened to a lot of work because I was passionately looking for "It" -- this certain quality that manifested Itself in a few beloved passages of prose or music that truly haunted me day and night. So, I'd listen to composers/bands/artists who were said to be similar to those who'd achieved It, but was almost always disappointed. Same thing with authors.
Several of these It-makers have stayed as points of reference for me, though: Tony Kushner, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, John Adams (the composer, not the 2nd president). It's hard for me to escape the conclusion that my years-long searching finally bore some fruit for me, in that I discovered works that I believe will sustain me and my soul (if there is such a thing) for a lifetime. Then again, I'm not even 30, so who knows?
Oh no, J.O. I just haven't had time enough for reflection. Soon enough my recent behavior will embarrass me too.
"So it's hard for me to recommend, or not, the Heinlein juveniles to someone today"#
"Citizen of the Galaxy". I'm afraid I still re-read it.
Likewise Lafferty. I think I know "Slow Tuesday Night" by heart. Wanna buy a Manus Module?
Speaking of being reminded of embarrassing opinions, this, which is striking just below my threshold of blogging.
"So, in the first one, Rocket Ship Galileo (which is bad, BTW, very 30's pulpish), his characters are three boys who fly off to the moon to fight...Nazis."
Aided, of course, but their wise older professor friend.
I already referred to the plot as embarrassing. But it was also written in 1946-7, when post-war Nazis were not hardly cartoon villains. That's what I mean about the context of the times. Ditto the notion that they could build a working rocket ship while the V-2 was still the hot kid on the block.
Feel free to wake up any time, Ogged, or FL, or -- Unf, Bob, are you alive? -- and approve my embargoed comment from last night, as you like. You have my permission. (I'm rarely likely to remember that 5 links will make my comment go into lock-up, since I still type with Banned HTM:L every damn time at Jim Henley's, and post embedded links, which fail, every damn time at deLong's and Dr. Frank's. Every time I remember after the software smacks me. After. Every time. Too many blogs (like, two or three, even), and apparently I have no available brain-file space for their individual quirks while I'm, you know, thinking about the words said instead. Naturally, their quirks should revolve around mine, not vice versa.
" ... but I'd have to say that calling the guy who did Annie Hall, Love And Death, Hannah And Her Sisters, Manhattan, and a fair number of other works, a 'would-be talent' is a bit silly. But mileage varies."
Mr. Farber, did you mention "Manhattan"? Then you made my case.
Gary:
Color me silly, too. Vastly overrated popcorn for the over-educated, and not much else.
Kyle, I am intrigued. Manhattan is one of my favorite movies. Sure, the characters are selfish and narcissistic, but then again, so are the characters in MacBeth. I guess my question is: what the hell is wrong with Manhattan?
I thought What's Up Tiger Lily? (the original version, before TCM went and fucked it up) was pretty doggone funny, but I've had lots of people tell me I'm wrong.
Vastly overrated popcorn for the over-educated, and not much else.
That comment in this forum is ironic or something.
sometimes I think Allen -- especially when writing for his own persona -- gets a little too precious with literary references. Often the references aren't spot-on, and you get the idea that he's trying too hard to sound sophisticated. That is the one problem with his own "Woody" shtick.
But he usually overcomes it, and is capable of creating some really haunting characters. His movies aren't really about the Woody schtick, and some of them don't suffer from it at all.
So aside from that complaint, what can you say against movies like Manhattan and Crimes & Misdemeanors?
"Love and Death" is chock full of precious references, literary and otherwise, and is not at all haunting. But it's also pretty funny. One forgives precious when it comes with funny, doesn't one?
I'm a big Woody Allen fan, also; I think Hannah and Her Sisters is a small masterpiece.
You know who thinks Woody Allen sucks, though? Woody Allen.
I'm convinced, on the basis of that interview, that Woody Allen is an Unfogged commenter.
I don't see how you can trash a guy who trashes himself. Maybe that's his strategy. You have to qualifiy his own self-deprecation a little, though: he thinks he sucks, but it's because he compares himself to Bergman. The implication is that all other American directors suck too.
The implication is that all other American directors suck too.
And...?
I'm with you, slo. I likes him, and most American directors do suck.
not embarassment, but sometimes slightly sad when getting another look at the things i once thought the platonic ideal of viking cocksucker: reading every xanth book (and the utterly bizarre experience of reading piers anthony's horror sci fi porno book at 14), wearing out my blood sweat and tears tape, watching aliens after school every day for a month, and seeing phish more times than i can count on both hands.
then again, if i hadn't developed a crack-like addiction to choose your own adventure books in my youth, which led to my reading compuslion, i may never have had the option to leave west by-god virginia. maybe the intellectual masturbatory fodder i enjoy has evolved, but i guess i wouldn't have reached my current ever-so-much-less-embarassing tastes now ("Not A Chat Room!"s). i regrets nothings.
well, other than once loving w/ that same thing SB linked. i'm a little embarassed.
I could see having a reaction to Manhattan. I bet it would be a little creepy and pedophilic, if you were looking at it in a certain way. The relationship with a high school student doesn't look the same way it did when the film first came out. Maybe the problem, for some critics of Woody Allen is his lack of self-awareness, in this sense? It's the knowledge of how close--and uncritical--he is to his subject.
I don't really have that problem myself, but had moments of queasiness on seeing Manhattan again.
I would be embarrassed if I'd fucked a Rush Limbaugh book, too.
In the 70s was it ok for a man in his mid-thirties to carry on a relationship with a high school student? Is she even a senior?
I thought that was the point, that it was creepy. The fact that she is remarkably intelligent, and acts like an adult makes it funny. But still a little creepy: a joke made at Woody's own expense, as are most of his jokes.
Part of what makes it work is that woody seems so inept. And then at some points, it just seems cruel, and not at all funny, as when woody breaks up with the Mariel Hemingway character, and she goes through this pain for the first time. And the scene at the end is partly triumphal, partly just sick. But it's intended, I think.
i'm actually daryn kagan.
do you ever wonder if the people responsible for creating all of these things ever feel embarassed about it? "wow, american beauty actually was shallow, trite, and insulting. here, take this trophy back." or, "hey, can we pretend i never wrote this, or had that haircut? or that author blurb?"
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47735
i wonder about these things.
It's not that it wasn't creepy. Just that at the time he would have seemed to have more distance from it? Not sure.
There's a difference between exploring themes because they're inherently interesting, and because they're your obsessions. I'm saying I could see that being a critical objection, rather than a moral one.
for the record, i never ever once for one second liked that worldnet thing. that would indeed be mortifying.
"I listened to a lot of math metal"
I was getting an inadvertent degree in math and listening to metal back in Metallica's heyday, but that's a new term for me. Apparently The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza is an example.
I see: it comes out that woody actually has a thing for high school students -- or did for one in particular, who he raised, which is gross -- so you see those scenes in a new light. That's fair, to a certain extent. But I think you ought not dismiss a work on the basis of the personal faults of the author. The work should stand on its own. All writers may as well be horrible people -- many of them probably are -- but it shouldn't affect whether you like what they've written.
what if it came out that Nabokov was actually a pedophile. Would it chage the way you read Lolita? On the one hand, you probably couldn't help thinking about it, but on the other hand, you shouldn't.
You can see that Nabokov had tendancies from his autobiography. His ideal women was under 16. He was under sixteen at the time so he had an excuse, but he was lucky there was no Internet in the 50s.
I just read a terrific article on Lolita by Christopher Hitchens, of all the infuriating people. In The Atlantic Monthly, I think.
I've never listened to a single one of those bands listed in Wikipedia. But I'll say no more on that subject, for I've said too much already.
Perhaps. But it tends to throw judgment and impulses and into question. I mean, no friend of mine will go see a Christian Bale movie with me, no matter how good it's supposed to be, for similar reasons.
Hitchens has written a couple things that make sense recently. Maybe he's kicked the booze. He did write a good book about Kissinger some time ago. Hard to forgive him for the past four or so years though.
I suppose if Christian Bale had been cast in brokeback mountain as the third cowboy, we wouldn't here from you for a few weeks, a.c.
"Christian Bale is a pedophile?"
It stands to reason. But the way I heard it was, he murders grandparents and steals their medications.
What did Christian Bale do? (I confess, I am celebrity-impaired.)
I'm not sure Lolita is actually about pedophilia (or nymphetophilia) in the same way that Manhattan is.
I can't believe I wrote here for hear.
exile.
Wait, but before you ban yourself, explain about Bale. Please? I don't want to have to google for celebrity gossip. I want to get it unfiltered.
Christian Bale has done nothing. I hope he leaves this thread without a stain on his character. I meant people don't trust my artistic judgment, where he's involved.
I want to get it unfiltered.
But text is himself a filter, a filter of awesome dimension and granularity.
As to Christian Bale -- if I am remembering my news stories properly, he was rather notorious about 2 years ago for a string of murders perpetrated through South Dakota and Nebraska.
I read that Hitchens piece on Lolita, I thought it was pretty good. Say what you will, but the man is a talented writer. Especially on non-Iraq War topics.
text is, by definition, the source. There is nothing outside....
My barber, whom I trust implicitly and I'm sure would never willfully mislead me, told me the other day that Christian Bale breaks into orphanages and breaks the pinkies of the smallest children. Mind, this is just a rumor I heard while getting my hair cut, and may not be true, but it would surprise me if it weren't.
The Dillinger Escape Plan and Behold…the Arctopus! are pretty good.
Math metal might fit The Locust. A friend once referred to them as sci-fi terrorcore.
My roommate last year was a big fan of The Locust. This was the same person who could listen to My Bloody Valentine for hours on end, and whose role in a noise band was to scream, un-mic'd, lines from Dante's Inferno, in the original latin, at the top of his lungs. Interesting fellow.
I am very sorry I missed all the Heinlein discussion. As a youth and young adult I read everything Heinlein put out, and I'm suprised no one else listed "Starship Troopers" as their embarrassing book.
I really, really got into that book. Maybe that is why I am harsh on libertarians - because I used to be one, sort of. A little bit fascist, too.
Most of Heinlein's juvies were "Boy Scouts in Space," big on exploration and self sufficiency. Then he had some good adult novels, and then, wow, he really went off the deep end.
Piers Anthony I also loved, and I forgive him for selling every little scrap he ever wrote, regardless of quality. As John says, he had bills to pay.
My most embarassing read was a little book called "Mits Wits and Logic." "Mits" = Man in the Street and "Wits" = Woman in the Street.
That book caused my normally pompous 8th grade self to become insufferable. For a year I considered logic to be king and emotions to be stupid. God what a smug horse's ass I was.
Does the Locust just scream or scream in imitation of a siren?
lines from Dante's Inferno, in the original latin
That must have been quite a challenge.
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" came later, but I'm not embarrassed about getting into that book.
I guess for me it's P. J. O'Rourke's output of the 1980s.
And now I need to go, but I can't leave without putting in "Jonathan Livingston Seagull."
Wow was that some fluffy pretentiousness.
That must have been quite a challenge.
You know the "ubi flumen est?" joke, right?
Elderly Latin teacher finally saves up enough to visit Rome. Doesn't know Italian but figures she can scrape by on derivatives and cognates. Trying to find the Tiber, asks the first civis Romanus she sees, "ubi flumen est?" To which he replies, in English, "My, madam, it has been a while since your last visit."
"Vastly overrated popcorn for the over-educated, and not much else."
And it takes "no talent" to do that. Okay. As I said, tastes vary. Presumably there's far more talent involved in making such claims of no talent. (Explaining what one likes is great; explaining why other people shouldn't like what they like is a different sort of thing.)
"I'm suprised no one else listed "Starship Troopers" as their embarrassing book."
I'd call liking the alleged movie embarrassing. The book tends to frequently misunderstood (nor, you know, did Heinlein actually favor only allowing vetarans to vote; it's part of that whole "speculative fiction" thing). But I got bored with ST debates almost, though not really quite, the time it was still "Starship Soldiers." (It was interesting the first 800 debates or so, back in the Sixties.) (Taking ST too seriously is as silly an error as taking anything too seriously is, of course.) (And if anyone does want to debate the alleged "fascism" of Starship Troopers, that's fine, too; I'm not trying to claim anyone else has gone through my experiences with Heinlein and should feel at all similarly.)
Gary, I see no need to back away from my comment here.
"Unf, Bob, are you alive? -- and approve my embargoed comment "
I approve. Even "Continued on Next Rock" should carry enough of the post-modern amalgam that is Lafferty to impress.
Not sure I am alive. Insomnia alternating with caffeine highs;weird hallucinations about gov't surveilance;the anti-spyware thingy I installed last night that erases my cookies and passwords as fast as I enter them;people dissing Manhattan:
This can't be real.
181: wow, american beauty actually was shallow, trite, and insulting. here, take this trophy back
Fametracker used to perform this service so the artists didn't have to.
Ah, sweet, sweet Fametracker....
Speaking of humiliation, I'm not going back through the whole thread, but has anyone yet remarked that the post title is misspelled?
"Starship Troopers"
I think this may be the title I was misremembering as Space Cadets--was there a scene in it about how to eat pie?
Weiner, I have no idea what you're talking about.
There is nothing embarassing about Prydain. You shouldn't even be thinking about it in connection to this topic.
You all have read too much. Clearly you didn't spend much of your free time in your late teens watching just about every college basketball game broadcast on ESPN and other channels.
I'm with you, eb. And I disagree with slol that there's not room for embarrasment there. I mean, if you knew Luc Longley's stats while he was still at New Mexico, that's pretty embarrassing (not that I did, but I knew people who did).
I'm certainly embarrassed: so much time lost. Although I'll admit that I saw a lot of fun games (but even more mediocre ones).
It could be a girl thing, but I guess that's my problem with watching sports - when you finish a book or a movie or other form of entertainment, there's at least a mild sense of accomplishment because you completed something. When watching sports, it's just lost time. There will be another game next week. What's the point?
Well, what attracted me to sports as a spectator - and still attracts me, though now I usually try to be doing something else at the same time if I'm watching a game, like skimming the news, etc. - was the fact that they're unscripted and actually happening, as opposed to movies and fiction.
it's just lost time. There will be another game next week.
How is this any different from a movie?
"Gary, I see no need to back away from my comment here."
Well, I'm not seriously arguing, as I said, that people shouldn't like what they like. But I think it unlikely you care as to whether an interpretation of a movie utterly reverses the morals and points of a book, or at least that specific book, to hold that opinion. Also, I suspect you care a fig about whether portrayls of a military, any military, make even the remotest amount of sense. Do let me know if I'm overly-presuming or wrong. As for some clues as what's unbearably dumb about the movie, as I've done a million times, I link to Jim MacDonald's review, which everyone should read, even if you've never heard of "Starship Troopers" and couldn't give a flying frig about Heinlein.
Basically, the movie has little to do with the book, shafts the points of the book (however worthless or worthwhile that they are), and is blatantly moronic. But, hey, I like lots of moronic things, too, so there's nothing wrong with that. I'm sure there are people who like The Scarlet Letter with a happy ending, or... oh, gee, look what Google turns up on the front page for a google of "worst movie adaption" +ever.
If they wanted to call it a comedy interpretation of the book, that would have been different. "National Lampoon's Starship Troopers" could be great. Doing it while claiming it was a serious representation of the "fascist nature" of the book -- which Verhoven did in countless interviews, is insulting anyone who actually had a clue about the book. What would one make of an adaption of Moby Dick in which Ahab got bored with his whale hunting, and went off to be a taxidermist? I'm sure there would be people who would like it, and see no reason not to. It wouldn't have much to do with the book, though, would it?
(On rare occasion, changes in movie adaptions help; The Player is an excellent novel, but the changes made for the movie made the story even better; hard to see how that applies to Verhoeven's piece of work, unless one starts from the position that the book is fascist trash that only fascists could like.
"Not sure I am alive."
I was actually trying to invoke the blog-owners there, Bob McManus. Remember that theoretically they include guys who go by "Unf" and "Bob."
But sympathies anyway, of course.
"I think this may be the title I was misremembering as Space Cadets--was there a scene in it about how to eat pie?"
Trivial note: Heinlein's second juvenile was "Space Cadet," not plural; it was an improvement on his first, but still not up to the par he'd strike, although it also served as the basis for the tv show Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. It reads about 100,000 percent more cliche now than it did then, because it established the cliches.
I'm vaguely remembering a pie scene in Space Cadet, in which there's a moral lesson about "pie with a fork," which I vaguely recall had something to do with being comfortable with other people's cultures and not intolerant, but my memory is vague; I don't presently have copies of any Heinlein, and it's been a good number of years since I've read either. I see that a real cadet found valuable lessons in the book still, though. As I think, more comes back to me. I vaguely recall that a Space Cadet is eating pie without a fork (and making a mess), and is ordered not to; he questions the order, and it is explained to him that he has to learn how to cope with cultures and practices other than those he grew up with to be a proper officer. Something to that effect, anyway.
#232: Art has meaning; a football game does not.
"Clearly you didn't spend much of your free time in your late teens watching just about every college basketball game broadcast on ESPN and other channels."
Not a minute. In my life. Or much other time on any sports, other than politics (there was that brief summer of chess, but having my camp bunkmate turn out to be a repeating guest on Shelby Lyman kinda taught me I had little serious future there; anyone remember Shelby Lyman?). I'm a classic dweeb geek. (Of a certain sort; not the bow-tie wearing, stuttering, sort. The sort who was actually incredibly popular with smart older women when he was a teen and in his twenties.)
But you knew that. (Incidentally, I haven't blogged too much while you were traveling, Ogged, but there were a few posts I thought you might enjoy, if you ever have time to ketchup.)
"When watching sports, it's just lost time. There will be another game next week. What's the point?"
I'd be in utter agreement, were it not for the minor fact that I play a lot of computer games.
And I don't seriously deprecate appreciating the many physical aspects of many sports; I did when I was an adolescent, and for quite some time later, but haven't for a couple of decades now, at least. I suspect there was a teeny-tad of "growing up" involved, but it's only a theory.
So I'm fine with other people enjoying sports. I'm just not interested in doing so myself, still. We're all allowed our unique, or not so unique, pleasures.
I'll wait for someone to compare the point of sports to the point of having sex for other than reproduction. At least, it seems to work that way for some, perhaps.
#235: Some movies have meaning, as do some football games. Sitting through either is no accomplishment, it's just passive entertainment.
>"When watching sports, it's just lost time.
I was looking for that.
"I'll wait for someone to compare the point of sports to the point of having sex for other than reproduction. At least, it seems to work that way for some, perhaps."
This can be taken in so many different directions, I declare it a poem, and a good one. Let us pause and appreciate.
Looking back at that thread you linked to, FL, it seems that you regard ST as a campy hoot of a bad film, enjoyable for the nasty insects and Denise Richards' tits. Well, I have nothing against that, or Denise Richards' endowment, but imagine if you took the book seriously as an important, much debated, book in its field, what you might think?
I suppose Pride and Prejudice with giant killer insects, brain bugs, and hooters, would also be a, um, hoot, but not so much if you were looking forward to the only serious movie adaption of it ever made.
237 - I see the point of playing sports, just not watching them. When you play a sport, there's an element of meaning or growth. Similarly, I can appreciate getting together with friends to watch a sporting event - with that, the takeaway can come from the shared experience. What I don't understand is what someone would get out of sitting down and watching a baseball game by themselves.
i think sports have some meaning. even apart from the whole "let's form tribes and mine beats up yours in hobbesian proxy", i think athletics is (are? ack) itself an amazing and occasionally inspiring thing. allen iverson's driving ability and lynne swann's acrobatice catches may not represent a deeper meaning in the way a ballet might, but they can be incredible expressions of what the human body and drive is capable. they provide structure for improvisation, and sometimes blazing talent is impressive itself, even when not in service of deeper meaning (also the only explanation for Yngwie Malmstein)
and when you grow up in rural wv, for example, you find yourself with some time on your hands after you've spent your allowance on books, read them all, and its too late to walk over the hills to see friends.
and later, they're an excuse to get drunk.
sports!
"How is this any different from a movie?"
Movies tell a different type of story, differently. I would never claim that a sports event doesn't have a narrative, but they are different kinds of narrative. And, yes, scripted and unscripted is one of the those differences. Nothing wrong with either of them. Nothing inherently wrong with "reality tv"; we used to call it "a documentary." (Back when they were unscripted.)
Becks, you realize half the male commenters are sitting alone, watching Monday Night Football right now.
you realize half the male commenters are sitting alone, watching Monday Night Football right now.
My admission started this conversation, but even I have limits. Baltimore and Green Bay are terrible.
Actually, I'm sitting here with a friend watching it. And I'll just say that this is primarily a gender-driven difference and we still respect you despite your charming difficulties in understanding.
246 - Yes, but they're commenting on Unfogged, which gives it meaning by making it social. Demented and sad, but social.
Thanks, ogged, but years of watching meaningless monday night games between teams that weren't expected to be so bad have really turned me away. That said, if my sister and her husband hadn't taken over the tv, I'd probably be watching.
It's all about the fantasy football these days, anyhow. It's gambling, people. Does the appeal really need explaining?
Here's something we can talk about: Michael Vick: sure, he can be exciting, but I really don't understand the hype around someone who's basically a mediocre quarterback. He's not nearly as good as Randall Cunningham, for example, but there weren't nearly so many stories about defenses quaking when Cunningham was coming to town. It's obvious that the media has decided that a black quarterback needs to be a star What gives?
Also I think this
I can appreciate getting together with friends to watch a sporting event - with that, the takeaway can come from the shared experience
applies to art, too. I don't think it was a coincidence that meeting someone who talked about literature a lot is what got me back into reading fiction. Art may have meaning, but see enough of it alone and you might find yourself wondering what's the point?
Becks, you realize half the male commenters are sitting alone, watching Monday Night Football right now.
I was making bouillabaisse.
"What I don't understand is what someone would get out of sitting down and watching a baseball game by themselves."
Intellectually speaking, I'm not sure how it's different than most interests. Maybe instead one is fascinated by the details of a craftsperson making miniature engines, rather than the details of what goes into making a winning team or athlete. Maybe instead it's the details of being a train-spotter, or a butterfly collector, or of being a bird watcher, or of watching a cooking show, or a sculptor work, or a mechanic fix a motorcycle, or a quilt being put together, or simply people-watching in general.
We all, mostly, find things that fascinate us, at least for a time, and we can go in several directions with that, including eventually losing interest, or becoming yet more fascinated the more we learn about the intricities of our subject, or just staying at a plateau of interest.
None of the things I've mentioned particularly interest me (wait, the people-watching always has fascinated me), and there's no reason that's weird of me, any more than it would be weird for you not to care about the details of a computer game I enjoy, or a book I happen to love, or for anyone to care about the personal pleasures of someone that one does not love.
But there's nothing surprising whatever about the different strokes principle, and I'm not clear what's hard to intellectually understand about that (which is why I used the term to start above), rather than to :emotionally understand, which is to say to share the same feeling. We don't all share the same feelings about the same things; film at 11.
I'll leave it to people who actually much enjoy sports to speak to what it says to their heart, or other available body party or ethereal essence of their soul, though I certainly have no trouble imagining (or knowing, cuz sometimes I talk to and read other people's opinions) quite a few clear likelihoods.
You know, apo, I don't do any fantasy leagues: taints the purity of the watching, ya know? (I do, uh, consult with a co-worker about his fantasy leagues however, so the appeal isn't lost on me.)
"And I'll just say that this is primarily a gender-driven difference"
I sporadically indulge in reading personal ads (hi, Ogged), and I can't tell you how many from women explain how much they love football or baseball or whatever; maybe they're all just fibbin' to Get Their Man, but I'm pretty skeptical; I tend to observe that faking believing something tends to turn into believing in that thing (hello, Vonnegut's Mother Night. (Needless to say, that would be taking the most cynical possible interpretation.)
I wouldn't have trouble believing that there are significantly more male fans of most male sports than female, but the number of female sports fans hardly seems insignificant.
Another thought: it's easy for those of us into the book larnin' to accept as a given that "learning is inherently good," (it's certainly my overwhelming prejudice) but it's unclear to me that my picking up all sorts of obscure trivia which I then attempt to harass people to death with on the Internet is actually a greater moral good for my life than my, say, working in the food bank, or doing any number of enriching non-learning things. Which is why I don't consider my own melange of obscure or popular interests to make me morally superior to someone else, or that it's a More Important Interest, than basketball. As I said, I thought differently when I was a kid, but i got over it. Eventually. (Although I do approve of people paying attention in particular to moral/ethical issues, which is to say, political issues, obviously; but that's not just any old sort of interest, I might try arguing; don't know I'd how far I'd go with that line, though.)
I watched a little of the game, and was hence not commenting, but that is a game that is meaningless. Kind of like Wings. ("Next on Wings--aah, who cares?") Now I think I will listen to a Cecil Taylor CD and (a) try and explain my philosophy of language (b) read some of Sweeney Astray (c) comment. Probably (c).
the fantasy / favorite team dilemma is bad. esp when you love the steelers and know better than to have them on a fantasy team, and you find yourseld feeling disloyal b/c you want them to win, but not by hines ward scoring. oh, the shame of disloyalty.
funny the way you feel a sense of loyalty to this group of people you've never met who don't know you from adam and who get paid to play a game making lots of money for really rich people, yet when they win, you feel like a part of it.
maybe i need to start watching my friends paint, and cheering and commentating and trading them to other friends who may need to fill a roster spot after their watercolors starter goes down with a sprained wrist.
try and explain my philosophy of language
"Here's my philosophy: infinitives are for pussies."
a significant subset of art concerns people acting, either admirably or not admirably, under stress. One thing that is compelling about sport is watching humans compete under great stress. It is not at all certain as to whether they will act admirably or not. The pass might be caught; it might not. There is a dramatic interest in how it turns out.
There is also a joy in watching athletic bodies in motion -- in art, the focus is on the bodies themselves, whereas in sport, the bodies are set in motion for a particular purpose. The beauty of the motion is secondary to the purpose, and therefore, somehow, more compelling. It is fascinating: the athlete did this great, difficult thing, under great stress, and it was beautiful, though the athlete didn't even care whether it was beautiful or not. That, I would argue, is the aesthetic component of enjoying sports.
There is thirdly an enjoyment you get solely from analyzing the strategies, which are usually very complex. That seems self-evident enough.
Finally, there's often money riding on it.
So it seems to me like you would have to be purposefully narrow minded to deny any possible interest in any of those aspects.
253: Vick is a video game come to life. He remains the most exciting athlete in the world today.
w-lfs-n: "try and" is a charming idiom.
Using "sport" instead of "sports" was needlessly affected and european. I'm not a european. I like hamburgers and football. I'd like to take it back.
SCMT, you clearly have not kept up with the world of table tennis.
http://www.tabletennisdayton.com/graphics/biba18.jpg
ogged:
I have never seen anything as absurd as that one broken play where Vick split the defenders and they crashed into each other. People keep watching to see something like that - it just doesn't seem possible. He's not a great QB, and his career may end without a majori success, but I can't think of a more exciting player in the NFL. And, off the top of my, I can't think one in the NBA either. (I haven't seen much Bron, though.)
Ok, fair enough. I can't get far enough past the fact that he's not very effective to enjoy how exciting he can be. I've been grooving on Reggie Bush this year. He's fun to watch.
That makes Vick depressing as all hell, I admit. Unlimited potential, yada yada.
Who do you think most underperformed in the NBA? I think it might be Coleman.
why don't the falcons run a single-wing offense or something? Vick has skills, just not as a drop-back passer. Why not use those skills -- since they went ahead and drafted him -- instead of trying to force him into the pocket? At least run the option every so often. He's going to have a hard time as a pocket passer in the NFL, for the simple reason that he isn't very tall.
yeah, yeah, Doug Floutie. Bite my ass.
It can't be anyone other than Coleman. So good, yet so bad. I feel a little bad for that guy. Such a headcase. I remember him telling the story of standing next to his friend when his friend got shot. I might waste my talent too, if that had happened to me.
Text: Is 6' too small for the NFL? Jeebus.
Ogged: Wow. We agree. Maybe the secret to the success of this blog is that you really are everybody's brother from another mother.
In other news, I'm going to stop reading other blogs. Too angry-making for such little reason. I think maybe I'm getting addicted to the adrenline. Also - a waste of time!
I was going to explain why Starship Troopers: The Movie is actually a witty and cutting suberversion and revision of the novel, but the thread has moved on; and anyway I spend too much of my time annoying Gary.
Is he listed at 6'? I remember his college stats as being 5'10 or 5'11. But yes, 6' is short for an NFL quarterback. If you watch Vick on the field, he's shorter than a lot of his linemen, which can be a real problem.
Easy to overlook when the guy can get out of the pocket like Vick can. In which case, why keep him there?
I'm going to stop reading other blogs.
Yeah, I read very few political blogs these days. Luckily, Labs reads them for us.
Is he listed at 6'? I remember his college stats as being 5'10 or 5'11.
Maybe the NFL is part of the Vast 3" Conspiracy. (For the purposes of my self-banning, I consider Yglesias's personal site as part of the Unfogged kieretsu.)
Part of the reason I started commenting here so much is that after the election I just couldn't stand to read any serious political blogs, so I started spending all my time here.
Now I'm back off the wagon, reading a bunch of other political blogs. For those of you who aren't, I can summarize: Motherfucking fuck Bush and his whole administration. (TPM has more.)
I think it's fair to say that some athletes exaggerate their height and weight, and some do not. If you are well within the normal range for your position, there's no reason to exaggerate, and you won't. Why, for instance, would Shawn Bradley have lied about his height? There would have been no point. If you are on the cusp, you will feel the urge to exaggerate, and if you are really good at your position, despite the height issue, nobody will call you on it. That is why you notice disparities for some professional athletes and not others, and why it's worth noting at all.
And yes, the phenomenon also applies to other measurements. For instance, since I possess a thirteen inch cock, I would have no reason to lie about that statistic.
Yes, the NSA/FISA thing is infuriating, but the turbo-wankerific response by Dean Esmay is pretty goddamn amusing. "Hang the reporters!"
I've become addicted to the political blogs and need to stop. Especially since I'm trying to read up on the history of American politics and all the "this is the most important story today!" stuff is pushing that reading out every day.
Speaking of 117, where's Chopper?
Sulking. Or: Baltimore, for work. Take your pick.
280: Nah, that's just sad. Given Esmay's wanktastic potential, that's just a single drop of pure seminal yearning.
Who do you think most underperformed for Wanker of the Year? I'd have to say Sullivan.
On underperformance in the NBA, what ever happened to Isaiah Rider?
And, sorry apostropher, The Poor Man is the hero.
I hate that feeling I get when I read about some new presidential atrocity--like my spine is about to burst into flames. I can only bear to get the news with a heavy coating of mockery. If the news were a hot dog and mockery were chili, and straight-up expressions of loathing were mustard, I'd be wanting a chili dog with double chili and mustard. plus onions.
283: Totally Sullivan. I really miss being told just how deep and profound my personal love for Saddam Hussein really is. He's seemed rational every few posts, which is very disappointing, given his potential.
Also, I think I totally agree with everything Gary has written in this thread.
...
I'm not quite sure what to make of that.
And, rilkefan: if I could punch you in the nuts through the Internet, I would. Verhoeven took a smirking shit all over one of my favorite books of all time.
Could someone explain what's fantastic about ST (the novel) without being a dick about it? I've read it a couple of times, I find it a little bit amusing, but if it's a big deal I must be missing something important. I'm not entirely kidding about this.
"So it seems to me like you would have to be purposefully narrow minded to deny any possible interest in any of those aspects."
Never underestimate the potential of unintentional narrow-mindedness.
Re reading other blogs: "Also - a waste of time!"
Sniffle.
"and anyway I spend too much of my time annoying Gary."
I've assumed that you've noticed that some of the time I'm a jerk, and it annoys you. Understandable, and sometimes annoying in return, if insufficiently appreciative of the fact that I'm only a part-time jerk.
"I can only bear to get the news with a heavy coating of mockery."
I do make a small effort, now and again.
"Also, I think I totally agree with everything Gary has written in this thread.
I'm not quite sure what to make of that."
That I'm only a part-time jerk?
I admire Esmay's ability to simultaneously belive that "Thus, the government could already do this. It is not new. This reminds me of the ludicrous posturing people make over so-called 'sneak-and-peak' warrants, acting as if these warrants are some new and damning power when in fact the government has had the power to do those things for literally decades." while simultaneously believing that "We've been doing things like this for decades, yes, and that's not a secret and it's not illegal. But it was a secret that we were now doing it specifically to go after Al Qaeda, that the rules had changed. Now Al Qaeda's been put on notice that we're doing it, and on how we're doing it, and how they can work around it."
Apparently, a) everyone knew about it, so it's no big deal, and anyone who says otherwise is a deceitful liberal idiot, and b) al Queda had no idea that they might be bugged until they read it in the New York Times.
You have to have a Big Mind to hold onto both of those.
I know I should just go to bed already, but I really want to know if the strike's on or not. COME ON PEOPLE. Make up your minds!
Union rejects contract offer, MTA reports.
Nope. If there is a strike, I get to work in my nice comfy pajamas tomorrow. Woo!
Oh, so you're hoping for a strike. Always good to be able to root for perfidy and discord.
Fontana, Starship Troopers isn't all that as a novel. It is, however, one of the beat of Heinlein's adolescent novels -- a 'ripping yarn' with enough thinking in it to get idea banging around in the head. Also, the exoskeleton suits remain wicked cool, even today.
I am sorry to miss a thread that encompassed both Isiah Rider and Derek Coleman. Two all time underachiever faves! And let's just be clear: Vick is not going to succeed as an top tier NFL quarterback for *years*. His passing skills are just too raw. Bad conditions, Bears defence, say what you will, some of those throws last night were J.P. Losman brutal.
300 - No, I can't root for a strike because it will hit too many people in the pocketbook right before the holidays. That would be bad. If one happens beyond my control and against my wishes, though...might as well enjoy it. While feeling terribly guilty, of course.
"Could someone explain what's fantastic about ST (the novel) without being a dick about it? I've read it a couple of times, I find it a little bit amusing, but if it's a big deal I must be missing something important. I'm not entirely kidding about this."
I can't explain what's fantastic about it for you, because it isn't. As you know, we each bring a different person to a book.
I can explain various things other people found fantastic about the book, but their/my reaction, of course, derives from a different set of experiences, prejudices, beliefs, and perspectives.
I'll think a bit, perhaps, about what the virtues of ST are; I'd have to start with how ground-breaking it was in 1957, or even by 1962. And how much Heinlein still was, if not as much so as he was in 1938.
It had provocative ideas in challenging conventional wisdom (it's not as if, as I've said, Heinlein was actually arguing in favor of that society, though certainly some of the points in his logic or observation were sincere. It's difficult to imagine how ground-breaking the technical details were in its day, or the re-imagining of future war. It's crisp. It moves like hell. The Mobile Infantry was a concept no one had thought of, and there was little precedent for the combat suits. And it was full of stuff that, about sixty years later, people are still furiously, utterly passionately, arguing about.
I think those are all good things. But you're never going to read science fiction the way I do, and vice versa, and that's okay. I come to it, for instance, in the context of having fallen passionately in love with the genre, and most of all, with the worldview -- the ideas of seeking out new ways to look at things, always, of not being afraid to consider dumb ideas, of understanding the universe in a scientific way, of not letting emotion triumph over fact, of experiencing the sense of awe and wonder at the infinite marvels of the universe that we've already discovered, and the infinitely larger marvels yet to be discovered, as prime values -- and with having fallen in love with the fact that there was this body of people who thought like me (at least, far more so than anyone non-sf-enthusiast I'd ever met for a long time to come). Of course, these were all the feelings of a child, and then an adolescent, and so on. But I still hold onto a lot of them, having discarded those I decided were false leads.
And so I went and did things like spend every weekend for months, as a kid around age 10-12 reading the entire backruns of Astounding and Amazing since, respectively, 1933 and 1926, that were on microfilm at the Main Branch, Grand Army Plaza, of the Brooklyn Public Library. Up until the then-present-day of 1969-72-abouts. That's the kind of fanatic I was (although I also read omnivorously anything I could find, given the limited amount of sf published up to that point: dog stories, horse stories, nurse stories, general fiction, mysteries, nonfiction from every number of the Dewey Decimal Sysem, it was all grist for my Need To Reed -- I could go into some psychological analysis of why I was that person, but not now), and that's why I was joyous to discover an entire body of folks, several hundred terribly active and primarily self-identified as An Sf Fan, with several thousands more more casually involved, at the time, who felt exactly the same way.
And that's how I read Heinlein, and Starship Soldiers in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, as well as the later revised book editions. And that's why we won't ever read it the same way.
That's it, baa: I want a deductive proof of its ripping yarnitude (in s5) on my desk at 0900! You at least have to admit that the OCS equivalent in ST is pretty campy.
Screw it. I'm going to bed. Otherwise I won't be able to drag myself to work tomorrow/enjoy working from home, whatever the case may be.
Two small points, however obvious: a) so, I was about 8 years old when I first read the book; b) ever since it was published, plenty of military people have found the book, sf and political aspects aside, to be one of the more notable characterizations of the military virtues out there.
This is an aspect that, given our somewhat frighening contemporary cultural divide between those-who-understand-the-military and those-who-don't, tends to range from invisible to most civilian readers to, more frequently, downright repellent (thus all those wheezers about the book being "fascist" we've heard so constantly for forty-five-plus years); it's certainly not an attraction to those who don't, um, grok it, but it is, nonetheless, another major virtue of the book, for those to whom it is not a vice.
The problem with sf I keep trying to get at, by circling around it constantly, here and so many other places, is that science fiction is a literature of neophilia. When a new idea is brought to a neophile, one is excited. But then it's not new any longer. And if you come first to the story that brilliantly introduced an original idea, outlook, perspective, way of reading, thought, only after you've read ten or a hundred or a thousand derivative works first, naturally you can't read it as if it was when it was still new.
But the virtue is still there. Just not for you. (Unless you're particularly good at seeing through the perspective you don't normally have.)
Does this make any sense to anyone?
Seriously, that Verhoven movie blows. And (as I may have mentioned before) the chick who dies is way cuter than Denise Richards. That's not my America.
s5 -- that brings me back! I had to google it to remember which one it was, too.
Also, I think Gary has nicely characterized a crucial aspect of sci-fi enjoyment (and enjoyment of *speculative* writing, broadly): the appeal of the new idea. This is why everyone should read at least one book by Vernor Vinge. Is the analogous appeal of noir crime fiction that you learn things you already know?
Seriously, that Verhoven movie blows.
Don't they all?
Esmay's ability to simultaneously belive
Esmay's ability to believe purely contradictory propositions is pretty impressive, indeed. I tend to go with the "fucking hacktackular" explanation over the "big mind" one, though. YMMV.
But you make an excellent point: "everybody knew this already" + "revealing this is an execution-worthy offense" = "internal consistency is for commies and Islamofascist pussies". It's not easy to arrive at overt fascist sentiments in that few steps. I can name zat tune in drei notes!
One can only hope he shows up here to try to square that particular logical circle, but since he didn't show at The Editors' digs after being the Poor Man's Wanker of the Week two weeks running, I'm not optimistic. More's the pity.
"You at least have to admit that the OCS equivalent in ST is pretty campy."
Book or movie? Move, I don't care. Book, I'm not clear what you're referring to. (Mind, as I said, although I've read the book quite a few times, none of them has been in the last fifteen years or so.)
It's not hardly the Great Sf Ever Told, or even Heinlein's best book (I'd go for The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, and that, too, isn't The Greatest Book Ever Told.
Which is why I've tried to go here for the wider picture in why some people care passionately when such work is dissed in a way seen as unfair.
And did I mention eight years old? The thing is, I see no reason to be embarrassed by what I loved when I was 8. Or 12, or 16.
Last point for the next two minutes: can you think of a better military sf book written before it? How about one that was even ever remotely a contender? If not, why wouldn't filling that niche mean something to the people it would mean something to? (No fair citing derivative works done after SS/ST [the title was changed for the book, which I've not bothered to make clear before in this thread], because the point is, all military sf is derivative of, or a response to, Starship Troopers, more or less.)
"Seriously, that Verhoven movie blows.
Don't they all?"
I thought Robocop had some minor virtues. It had trivially amusing "satiric" aspects, and it was generally a functional work. The difference between it and ST was that it wasn't pissing all over a beloved work and claiming to represent it. (I'm old-fashioned in my usage; I'm still not able to get past the fact that ever since Forry Ackerman invented the neologism, "sci-fi" has meant "the junk crap" to us old-time trufan fanatics; I've tried to get relatively easy-going on this, though, given that We clearly lost that battle in the last couple of decades, and Forry won; but in my usage, ST the book is sf, and the movie is clearly sci-fi; but I don't expect anyone but us fogies to go along with that, anymore; I'm just saying in passing.)
I'd incidentally assert that it's far harder to find, and fairly rare, a "science fiction movie" that serves the sort of neophiliac idea I assert that much of the better sf -- text, that is -- tends to bring to the mind. (And the neophilia can come in any number of ways, including simply in use of language, and is not, nonetheless, a requirement to be good sf; it's simply a major feature of much good sf; but sf is a house of many mansions.
"But you make an excellent point: "everybody knew this already" + "revealing this is an execution-worthy offense" = "internal consistency is for commies and Islamofascist pussies"."
Well, who could possibly think that al Qaeda folks might imagine the U.S. was trying to listen to their phone calls, etc.? They'd never think of the idea unless the U.S. press suggested that remote possibility.
It's very vaguely reminiscent of the "secret bombing" of Cambodia: who, again, was it secret from?
When I hear the title "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress" I think of the Judy Collins song that my dad used to play when I was a kid.
Heinlein wrote some pretty shitty novels in the eighties.
Gary, Chopper - that was a joke about ST:TM. You know, Cats: The Movie. I don't even recall much beyond Denise Richards's fascinating grin, somewhere between rrrrow and rictus, and her shirt getting caught on her chin.
Didn't think much of the novel, either - I never could make sense of the idea of a space-faring society needing human infantry (just a quibble) and there was an argument somewhere in the middle about people not being potatoes which wasn't applied to people not being puppies that gave me the sense that I was either being lectured at or reading something not thought through. That either way Heinlein thought the reader was a puppy.
Of course I might have liked the novel more if I hadn't read the late Heinlein novels.
"Don't they all?"
I still like "Total Recall," campy ultraviolence, triple-breasted mutant psychics and all. I think I should be embarrassed about this, but I'm not sure. Is the movie old enough for me to genuinely like it while pretending to only "ironically" like it?
318 (+/-) comments is just ridiculous.
Who has time to go back and read all of these?
There was a series of vampire books from P.N. Elrod, The Vampire Chronicles, and the Bunnicula series from James and Deborah Howe; I loved those books.
Preach it, Isle. Total Recall is a good movie.
Looking at the list of his movies, it's pretty clear that this is a man very much attuned to the lure of titties. No matter what the movie is about: a future war, a murder investigation, cutting edge science, it's actually about titties. This is not a bad thing.
Bunnicula is fun--we've rediscovered it with PK.
Total Recall, however, is misogynist crap. Much like Starship Troopers (the movie, not the book, which I've never read. I have read plenty of PKD, and I like his books, so w/r/t TR, I blame the filmmakers).
Bunnicula is fun--we've rediscovered it with PK.
Total Recall, however, is misogynist crap. Much like Starship Troopers (the movie, not the book, which I've never read. I have read plenty of PKD, and I like his books, so w/r/t TR, I blame the filmmakers).
Back to #235: I was summarizing what I perceived to be Becks's objection to sports.
Now, I agree that sports have meaning in a broader cultural context. However, you have to admit that the meaning one imposes on a sporting event is a construct in a way that the meaning one discerns in a deliberately created work of art is not. The distinction is worth noting, not dismissing.
Having said that, I enjoy soccer and occasionally basketball, but football is boring as hell. And most sports are a lot less interesting on tv.
Oh, and sorry about the double post. Someone needs to fix that.
I can't believe nobody has come to the defense of Showgirls.
When you discover ST as a teen and you're still trying to make sense of the world, it can hit you pretty hard. For one thing, it talks about societies and how people fit into them. It is not just a bang-bang shootout. Also it makes a great excuse for those of us not yet proficient with the ladies. The protagonist is too busy saving the world to worry (much) about getting a date with Carmen.
I also think that at the time it was released the world had been traumitized by fascism and war and yet the book embraces aspects of both of them.
As for watching sports - there is the obvious appeal of watching someone excel at something one is still struggling to master. Even so, most men watch sports that the personally do not play or have played. What do they get out of the experience? A testosterone boost. Yeah, it is chemical, and it is measurable, and damn if it doesn't feel good, too. Just like gambling gives you adrenaline and smoking gives you nicotine, sports give you testosterone.
And now that it is the 21st century testosterone is not just for men anymore! Yeah baby, women are welcome to indulge as well!
It must be because I lack testosterone that every time I am forced by circumstances (such as the lack of anything, down to and including 3-year-old copies of U.S. News and World Report and shopping circulars, to read) to watch football I have to have downs explained again.
In a way the details of the contest don't really matter. The players are wearing costumes that exaggerate their maleness (broad shoulders and tight buttocks) while competing with each other in an incredibly violent yet suprisingly non-lethal event. The females watch and cheer from the sidelines wearing costumes that exaggerate their femaleness.
If that is not a mating ritual I don't know what is.
As Bphd says it comes across much better in person. TV is a little remote.
Huh, I think football is better on TV.
I'm with you, Ogged. Football is entirely better on TV, if you're interested in the game, as opposed to the getting drunk and hollering part. Up in the stands of any medium to large sized stadium, the players all appear about an inch and a half tall.
Well, yeah, but isn't that because you are a little too frightened of your inner dragon?
"Heinlein wrote some pretty shitty novels in the eighties."
The whole rape thing I will neither defend, nor not point out that that was hardly undiscussed or reacted to after publication. But, in point of fact, Friday is pretty clearly far superior to every novel Heinlein wrote after The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress; the difference in coherence level between it and "To Sail The Sunset" or "Time For The Beast" is stunning. Friday was arguably his last decent book. But he was quite old, had had the brain-blood blockage problem circa I Will Fear No Evil, which even the Heinlein's subsequently acknowledged affected that work (and the operation helping relieve the blockage that is what made for Friday). But he was, unfortunately, long past his sell-by date.
"...that gave me the sense that I was either being lectured at...."
In a Heinlein novel? C'est incredible! Who could imagine?
"Of course I might have liked the novel more if I hadn't read the late Heinlein novels."
See above.
"Bunnicula is fun"
Although I had nothing to do with the book, beyond working a few dozen feet away from its editors, and participating in the weekly editorial meeting of the 14 of us, and otherwise interacting in general stuff, I was most pleased that Bunnicula was published by the kid's (or YA; I forget, twenty years later) imprint at Avon when I was with the company. Great stuff.
I should clarify. Certain aspects of football are better on TV, and indeed the symbiotic relationship between TV and America Football has helped both of them. It is the mating ritual aspects that come across much better in person. Stand on the sidelines - or better yet participate. The strength and speed of the players and the extent of the violence are much more obvious.
I played HS and college ball.
My dragon comment was for ogged, and I probably crossed the line with that one. I apologize. I am curious, though, to know if you have ever experienced rage, and what that was like for you? Still, I know this is a VERY personal question.
there are advantages to football in the stands besides the hooting and hollering. You can see the whole field. Television exaggerates some aspects of the game and minimizes others. In person, you are struck by how small the field seems, in relation to the players.
There's more to the game than just following the ball, which is what the TV cameras do. For that reason, on TV, much of what defensive backs and safeties do is completely lost. Also, in person, it's more acceptable to leave peanut shells on the floor.
or in the alternative, what Tripp said. I played high school but not college ball. Now I drown myself in beer and sorrow, sitting in my letter jacket, in the early morning.
text,
Worse yet I post pseudoanonymously to blogs, just another one of the faceless usedtabees.
It is pathetic really.
I've got to go smash something. Why isn't anybody cheering anymore?
"Total Recall is a good movie."
Can't quite agree, though glad it works for you. Verhoeven took a classic story by Phil Dick -- "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" and did a couple of good scenes from it reflective of the "what is reality?" theme that was one of Dick's essential themes -- and built a cliched, unimaginative, purely derivative, Schwarzenneger action vehicle around it with lots of gunshots, explosions, and Arnold quips. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't call that either a "good" movie, and it's otherwise not very good sf. (Dig the idiotic down-to-the-classic-cliche of the "my eyes will pop in a vacuum, and my body will explode!" so popular with scientific illiterates; given that Kubrick/Clarke did it right, there's no excuse except to pander to the ignorant.)
But, as Arnold lumbering around being Arnold movies goes, it certainly rates over his "comedies." I''d watch Total Recall ten times for every time you put a gun to my head to make me watch Kindergarten Cop. (Hey, Sharon Stone, if nothing else.)
Oh, and the two scenes that reflected Dick -- unlike the entire rest of the movie, unfortunately -- was the Rekal scene, and the "I am a doctor, and you are having a psychotic, break, Arnold, trust me" scene. Those were good. There could have been a good movie vaguely related to Dick's concepts if they'd built around that. But it couldn't have been an Arnold vehicle.
I'll take Terminator and T2 as Arnold's classics, if we're talking the genre of Arnold films, not sf films. (Not that there was anything terrible about them as sf, save for the fact that the ideas, such as they were, were literally about 40-odd-plus years old; as I said, that's what almost always happens with "sf movies," let alone "sci-fi movies.") (And I thought T3 was reasonable brainless fun; ditto The Running Man and Predator; all fine brainless action movies.) Shoot me with that gun at my head before I watch Batman & Robin: The Abortion, though.
Of course, best lines ever given to Arnold: "(What is good in life?) To crrudsh yeh enemies, to dridve dem bevore you, and to hear de lamentations ov deir vomen."
My inner dragon? Tripp baby, despite a reasonably well-deserved reputation for even-temperedness, I've put holes in the walls of every place I've lived (and not just when Ben's mom was over for a party). Seriously, the talk about wanting to kill people when I'm hungry isn't a joke--though now, in the fullness of my years, I've basically figured it out and always have food nearby, I spent many years being totally calm, just until I flew off the handle. Aside from all that, I think bloodlusty cheering for the home team is one of the great inventions of humankind.
Though how could I leave out Arnold's Bestest Movie Evah?
The higher you are the harder you fall.
Merry effing Christmas
#326: Most of the books I read as a pre-teen discussed society and how one fits into the world. Very few of them were bang-bang shootouts.
Gary,
I've always thought "The Stainless Steel Rat" would make a great fun movie. Not deep or anything, but a very nice gadgety movie of the future.
What do you think of that idea?
"I also think that at the time it was released the world had been traumitized by fascism and war..."
1959 OCT-NOV, to be precise. Fair enough.
"...and yet the book embraces aspects of bothf them."
That war can't be wished away, sure. Fascism: sigh. (I'm not going to argue; believe what you want.) (I'd just also note that anyone trying to derive the notion that Heinlein favored fascism: a) has no clue whatever about his life or beliefs; b) would have a tad of trouble reconciling the worldview of ST with, say, Stranger In A Strange Land, or Beyond This Horizon, or Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, and on and on. The job of an sf-writer is to world-build a made-up world (when they do that sort of thing), not to pretend or be deluded into belief it's real, or should be real; Heinlein did not, of course, advocate for the world or politics of ST (and the places where he stacked the political deck in the book are obvious to anyone paying attention) back in reality. (Although there were numerous things said in the book that he believed, of course.) Admiration for military virtues=! facism. (Oh, crap, I bit with that last one. Stopping now.)
"What do you think of that idea?"
Back in the Sixties or Seventies, I would almost surely have agreed. These days, I'm unsure; I'd have to reread it to consider adaption/updating possibilities.
In case no one has noticed, I've set up a bit of a trap as to what constitutes a "good sf movie" by strict definition (and, yes, sometimes I use a looser definition) (good sf movies exist: 2001, 2010, Twelve Monkeys, Forbidden Planet Day The Earth Stood Still, Last Year At Marienbad, Alien, Gattaca, and the rest of the smattering (maybe either version of Lathe Of Heaven, although I'd lean towards saying they are good sf, but not very interesting movies); there just aren't a huge number of them). On the one hand, I'm saying that an adaption needs to be, not necessarily entirely faithful to the original work -- that's a trap -- but respectful of its themes, intent, and qualities. But I'm also saying that the longer an sf movie is made from the time the ideas in it were new and exciting, the less sf juice it has in it. So, inevitably, among other factors, that almost sets up a timeframe in which the more time it takes to put out a good adaption, the less interesting it will be, anyway, save as a museum-like recreation of a work in another medium. So that becomes a difficult needle to thread. If no one else will point it out, I will.
In other words, original works may be the best way for sf movies to go. But there are a whole slew of other problems with bringing the values of good sf to movies: the dropping of everything that is text and language; the need to go for a far lower denominator of understanding given the needs to make money with even a small independent film, compared to the ability for a written text to grandly succeed even if only a few thousand people "get it" for decades; the amount of time involved, making it extremely hard to bring one into a New Strange World in a movie, compared to in a text; the trap of tending to need to be visually appealing; the general tendency to need sympathetic characters in a movie; the need to have human, understandable, characters in a movie; the nature of the dilution of the colloborative process of a movie; the simple fact that the majority of the population simply doesn't understand science fiction, or how to read it. And so on.
The reason there aren't all that many good real sf movies, rather than good action-adventure films with sf trappings (putting a story in an sf setting used to be referred to as "calling a rabbit a smeerp," per James Blish; if the same story works outside an sf setting, some would say that's not real sf; Galaxy used to run comparative paragraphs on their backcover of that sort of thing, and declare in bold, large, type: "You'll Never See It In Galaxy!"), is that there are all these reasons making it so hard; it's not because of some conspiracy to make crap, after all. (Check out the tale of the writers of the movie of The Puppet Masters, speaking of one of Heinlein's most imitated works.)
"Most of the books I read as a pre-teen discussed society and how one fits into the world. "
Yes. Not about how fitting into other worlds is different.
Admiration for military virtues=! facism.
Gary,
I think I'm misusing the word fascism.
What I was referring to was the notion that corporal punishment - inflicting pain on someone, including children - was an effective and the prefered method of behavior control. I think it was known at the time that positive reinforcement is much more effective at conditioning behaviour.
Yeah, maybe Heinlein himself didn't believe pain worked very well, but the ST society certainly did.
They spanked their kids, paddled their puppies, and whipped their criminals.
"They spanked their kids, paddled their puppies, and whipped their criminals."
Yes. It's hard to provoke people with shocking ideas if they're not shocking. (On the other hand, the Authority characters in the book emphasized the difference between a physical response, and sadism, unlike the movie, in which the nutso Sergeant, who can't count, and is incompetent, simply breaks a recruit's arm for sport; but the movie has squat to do with the book, save to reverse most of its points. Did anyone read the hilarious, accurate, Red Mike review?)
(Is paddling puppies now frowned upon, though? I'm not up on modern pet-raising theories.)
Heinlein certainly does read in ST as someone who is against all those mamby-pamby people who believed that they could vote without having been in the military, those crazies who believed that they shouldn't abuse their children, and basically against anything that wasn't heigh-ho military ethics.
I don't know much about Heinlein otherwise (except a couple of other books), but I don't think it's an unfair reading of the story to say that it presented the world as a military values utopia.
#346: Au contraire. For instance, Summer of My German Soldier and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, just off the top of my head. And most adolescent angst-novels are about fitting into other worlds, as are most adventure novels.
Is paddling puppies now frowned upon, though?
Yup. It's much easier to teach a puppy that peeing outside is both permissible and actively commendable than it is to teach it that peeing inside is wrong. (I say, glibly. I've done the former reliably and easily, never the latter. But I've read that the ladder is a more difficult process.)
"I think it was known at the time that positive reinforcement is much more effective at conditioning behaviour."
And to try to be clear: that a science fiction story presents ideas that are not realistic should not exactly be shocking. The question is whether suspension of disbelief can be adequately maintained; not that a given aspect does not, in fact, to reality. Not conforming to reality is the point. (I imagine Heinlein thought that pain was fairly effective at affecting behavior; how he ranked positive reinforcement in comparison to negative, I couldn't say; it's not particularly relevant to the story, which is separate from the author.)
Although that Heinlein had a number of points he wanted to make in ST is undeniable; but the politics were, overall, intended to make people stop and think about what they believe and why, not to convince them that an unworkable fictional construct should be put into action in real life.
Most of the characters in most other Heinlein books, after all, wouldn't agree at all with the authority figures in St; Prof would be quite scathing, as would Jubal Harshaw, or any of the Stone Family, and on and on. Neither did Heinlein believe there were Martians who could teach people how to make things disappear.
Jesus. Latter. Latter. Latter.
I haven't seen anyone in this thread argue that Heinlein actively believed in Martians or supported his military utopia IRL, though I imagine it's a charge that would come up, since authors sometimes present their political views in fiction. (Like the time Tom Clancy came to my university and made a lovely comment about how it was better before it was co-ed.)
Um, on the embarassing SF note. I have read way too many Star Wars novelizations. And wayy too many of the Anne MacCaffrey novels (plot summary of everything: young, talented girl is really interesting, conflicted and has lots of adventures until she fulfills her life goal of marriage.)
Also, Mercedes Lachey (sp?). Argity arg.
Gary 1:
Fascism: sigh.... anyone trying to derive the notion that Heinlein favored fascism: a) has no clue whatever about his life or beliefs; b) would have a tad of trouble reconciling the worldview of ST with, say, Stranger In A Strange Land, or Beyond This Horizon, or Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, and on and on.
Gary 2:
(I imagine Heinlein thought that pain was fairly effective at affecting behavior; how he ranked positive reinforcement in comparison to negative, I couldn't say; it's not particularly relevant to the story, which is separate from the author.)
These aren't contradictory since g1 is talking about attributing views to the author and g2 is not. But I took Cala et al to be interested in the question of what the book says, not what the author believed, which makes facts about the author less relevant, as g2 points out.
"Heinlein certainly does read in ST as someone who is against all those mamby-pamby people who believed that they could vote without having been in the military, those crazies who believed that they shouldn't abuse their children, and basically against anything that wasn't heigh-ho military ethics."
Sure. But confusing an author with their characters is an ancient art.
As I've said, try squaring the "beliefs" one may be convinced Heinlein has from ST with the libertarian beliefs the characters in Moon In A Harsh Mistress hold, or that the folks in Stranger In A Strange Land hold, or the planned economy in Beyond This Horizon (although there is a paen to the virtues of guns there, I grant), or the Galactic Empress in Glory Road, or the genetically-based subculture in Methuselah's Children, or the anti-slavery theme of Citizen Of The Galazy, or the parliamentry politics of Double Star, or the genial libertarianism of The Rolling Stones, or the anti-imperialism of Between Planets, or the we-are-super-secret-agents-in-support-of-American-Democracy of The Puppet Masters, or the anti-religious-fundamentalism of Sixth Column, or... am I getting anywhere near making a point for anyone yet? And let's not even try to speculate on what politics might be found in, say, "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag," or "By His Bootstraps," or "Jackpot."
It's a pretty good trick to so overwhelmingly convince people that These Are Real And Important Ideas solely through the voice of your characters. How many Arthur C. Clarke stories do people argue about today, or Asimov stories, with all due respect to these giants' other strengths?
"It's much easier to teach a puppy that peeing outside is both permissible and actively commendable than it is to teach it that peeing inside is wrong."
My apologies to Stormy, as well as Happy, and Lucky (my parents were deeply unimaginative with dog names) for our mix, in my childhood forty years ago, of positive and negative reinforcements, then. I don't recall much success with negative reinforcement with the birds, the lizards, the fish, the gerbils, or various other companions of that age, I have to confess. (My aunt was allegeric to cats; cats came later in my life.)
I think that's one of the reasons that dogs are thought of as so much more trainable than other animals -- while positive reinforcement still works better, dogs are one of the few animals for which positive punishment works at all. You can teach a dog stuff by punishing it -- it just isn't the easiest way.
Mercedes Lachey"
Lackey. Very popular comfort food with the teen grrl set, or those who adore Anne McCaffery and Marion Bradley, but with that added gay-men/slash frisson ; I got the original "The Last Herald Mage Trilogy" bought by the SF Book Club back in the day when I freelanced like mad for Ellen Asher.
As a person, she's a crazed paranoid whack job, by the way. Very agitated about the many plots against her. At least, so she was back in the Nineties; I haven't followed since. Maybe she's gotten over it; I hope so.
"I have read way too many Star Wars novelizations."
I like Star Wars (it ain't sf, but I like space fantasy when it's fun, too). I like Star Trek, dumbass as some of it is. I like various comics. Perhaps that makes me all dumb and childish and I should be embarrassed, yet I'm no I also watched Popular Cultures Studies grow ever since the Bowling Green investment decades ago. Apparently you can be smart, and find interesting things in this stuff, as it turns out, but it also makes me a bit sad when people need to justice likeing something by resort to authority, rther than being able to rely on, you know, what they like.
If you're embarrassed because you no longer like what you once liked, okay. If you're embarrassed ecause you're afraid of what others will think if you confess some things you like, well, that's a choice, but it's not the only possible one. Confidence in one's own self over others is one alternative.
"...but I took Cala et al to be interested...."
If I made a reply in this thread to Cala prior to this comment, I've missed noticing. But I'm sure I'm letting shades of the classic Starship Troopers accusations influence what I'm saying, absolutely, so insofar as you've picked up on that, you're accurately doing so.
Facism is, of course, the belief that one face is superior to another.
Gary,
It isn't that negative reinforcements doesn't work, it is that positive works so much better. There can be a small place for negative reinforcement, but a much bigger place for positive.
In a similar vein when raising my kids I took as a big mantra that I would always strive to tell them what to do instead of telling them what not to do. I blame "The Fantastiks" and the song "Why did the Kids put Beans in Their Ears?"
What I soon discovered is that telling them what to do is many times a lot harder than telling them what not to do.
For example, say I'm trying to watch the Vikings lose so that I can get my testosterone level up and also can relive some of my past glory. Say the kids, four under the age of 10, are in the room being loud and distracting.
I can easily tell them "Don't fight" or even "Don't fight or you will get a licking." The problem is that all they hear is "fight" and maybe the older ones get the threat so they vaguely know not to fight. But hey, I never said they couldn't jump up and down and scream. Pretty soon we are the playing the game of me enumerating all the things they should not do while their inventive little minds are trying to find ways around my restrictions.
On the other hand if I think about it a minute and say "Go in the other room and play with your puzzles" then there is a better chance they will actually do just that and get out of my hair.
Gary,
It isn't that negative reinforcements doesn't work, it is that positive works so much better. There can be a small place for negative reinforcement, but a much bigger place for positive.
In a similar vein when raising my kids I took as a big mantra that I would always strive to tell them what to do instead of telling them what not to do. I blame "The Fantastiks" and the song "Why did the Kids put Beans in Their Ears?"
What I soon discovered is that telling them what to do is many times a lot harder than telling them what not to do.
For example, say I'm trying to watch the Vikings lose so that I can get my testosterone level up and also can relive some of my past glory. Say the kids, four under the age of 10, are in the room being loud and distracting.
I can easily tell them "Don't fight" or even "Don't fight or you will get a licking." The problem is that all they hear is "fight" and maybe the older ones get the threat so they vaguely know not to fight. But hey, I never said they couldn't jump up and down and scream. Pretty soon we are the playing the game of me enumerating all the things they should not do while their inventive little minds are trying to find ways around my restrictions.
On the other hand if I think about it a minute and say "Go in the other room and play with your puzzles" then there is a better chance they will actually do just that and get out of my hair.
Speaking of embarrassing, I really should stop trading speed-and-sloppy-quantity for proofreading. If anyone can't mentally correct, ask; I'll try to be a bit more careful.
I did pause dreamily for a moment to contemplate what the politics of "All You Zombies" might be.
I have to say that I've missed noticing that most dogs have to be trained to be able to pee outside, for the most part. Also that I'm confident in saying that the idea that it was wrong to paddle a dog would have been regarded as nuts by at least 92% of Americans in the Fifties, but also that I never heard of anyone explaining that one shouldn't use rewards in dog-training back then, or earlier, but I'm in no way expert on the history of pet relations, and in fact know very little about the topic.
However: book that had a big impact on me at circa age 8 or so (9? 10?; definitely not later): Beyond Freedom And Dignity. Oh, dear. I survived, though.
I think what really goads me about ST is that it stacks the deck to make corporal punishment and authoritarian rule work and it glorifies them. It conveniently introduces giant attacking bugs from space so we can fight without any feeling of conscience.
On top of that I fell for it. Being a teen I bought that message lock stock and barrel, at least for awhile.
Speaking of embarrassing, I really should stop trading speed-and-sloppy-quantity for proofreading. If anyone can't mentally correct, ask; I'll try to be a bit more careful.
I did pause dreamily for a moment to contemplate what the politics of "All You Zombies" might be.
I have to say that I've missed noticing that most dogs have to be trained to be able to pee outside, for the most part. Also that I'm confident in saying that the idea that it was wrong to paddle a dog would have been regarded as nuts by at least 92% of Americans in the Fifties, but also that I never heard of anyone explaining that one shouldn't use rewards in dog-training back then, or earlier, but I'm in no way expert on the history of pet relations, and in fact know very little about the topic.
However: book that had a big impact on me at circa age 8 or so (9? 10?; definitely not later): Beyond Freedom And Dignity. Oh, dear. I survived, though.
"...what really goads me...."
That was the goal. But that can't be right!
"...is that it stacks the deck...."
Of course it does. There's no other way to make it work.
"Summer of My German Soldier and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry,"
Checking shows that these books came out after my childhood/"young adult"-hood, I'm afraid, for what it's worth. But you're using "different world" to mean "in this world." I'm not. If there's not something that in the story that makes it a "different world" in some sense that is more literal than you're apparently using those words, than it's definitionally not sf or fantasy.
"And most adolescent angst-novels are about fitting into other worlds, as are most adventure novels."
I'm being more literal in usage than you are. To extend my sentence in 346 slightly: "Not about how fitting into other worlds is different from fitting into our world." And, definitionally, it has to be a world that is different in some way than ours, whether that means Middle-Earth/Narnia and mythopoeic, or simply that it turns out to be possible to teleport on an Earth otherwise identical to ours, or that it's, say, "When It Changed" or "Slow Tuesday Night."
But I may have lost the thread here. I probably lost track of your point, I'm afraid, or missed it.
I'm boring myself about Heinlein, by now, not to mention everyone else, but one general observation is that if I had to pick one word to describe Heinlein's most consistent theme in his evolving political views over his life, it would be "individualism."
I didn't agree with many of the views he held at various times, including some passionate disagreements, by the way.
And I've gotten through all these posts (until now) without even bringing up my personal encounters with him, or the whole mess I stumbled into between him and Alexei Panshin in 1973, and then the mistake I made by posting about it to Usenet in 1995, causing a set of threads that literally went on for over two years. (One later result: when Alexei finally got online somewhat later, we became quite friendly.) If you think this one is long: ha!
But that's typical of Heinlein arguments.
If you think this one is long: ha!
I'll bet you say that to all the pretty boys, Gary.
Gary,
Thank you for that link.
One value I very strongly got from Heinlein that has served me well is 'competence.'
His books were filled with people who had competence and ability and were generally rewarded for it.
"One value I very strongly got from Heinlein that has served me well is 'competence.'"
Sure. His recurring protagonist-in-different-names (typically divided in the trinity of Wise Old Man, Competent Protagonist, and Young Leaner) isn't famously known as "The Competent Man" for nothing.
Of course, w-lfs-n already touched on that with his link to Evil McIrvin's mockery, in 316. (Kidding about Matt; I've always liked him; he's another fan.)
If you're embarrassed because you no longer like what you once liked, okay. If you're embarrassed ecause you're afraid of what others will think if you confess some things you like, well, that's a choice, but it's not the only possible one. Confidence in one's own self over others is one alternative.
Erm, thanks for the slightly condescending pep-talk? The reason I'm embarassed over liking too many of the Star Wars novelizations is that 1) most of them are objectively crap (Kevin J. Anderson's plots consist in.... it's a NEW Death Star. But this one is BIGGER. And looks like A SABRE.) and 2) there was a point where I had read all of them, which indicates wayyy too much devotion to objective crap.
I think I missed the cutoff for Lackey; I read them when I was 24 because my roommate had them on her shelf. And it was simply melodrama. Non-stop melodrama and will I find anyone to love me or will I be doomed to wander the world alone, alone, I tell you.
And I'm gay!
"objectively crap"
Ah. Could you point me to the objective source of rulings on Good and Bad in literature, please? It strikes me as a very useful thing to have access to.
The description of Lackey -- and here I immediately note is that that the "Last Herald Mage" trilogy, which was her first, is the only fiction of hers I've read -- is spot on. It was obvious to my commercial eye that it was going to sell like hotcakes. Except that I've never particularly noticed hotcakes selling all that well. But anyway.
Sorry for the condescension. Really.
Ah, I wish I'd been around for this conversation (aside from the couple snarks I threw in upstream).
Gary contunes to largely present my point of view, althoug I *like* late Heinlein. (Especially Number of The Beast and Friday, but including Sail Beyond the Sunset).
And a note on the rape scene in Friday: yes, the character was raped and made little of it, but it was made plain in the book that the character had been raised in a group home to be a whore--one imagines that presenting such a character as being blase about a rape after a lifetime of essentially being treated as an object is at least a legitimate choice, especially given Heinlein's established preference for the stiff upper lip.
"but it was made plain in the book that the character had been raised in a group home to be a whore-"
And also a genetically superior super-person with mental disciplines allowing her to control her fear, shut out pain, and a trained super-spy/super-assassin who has years of experience undercover and maintaining her cover, which was exactly the situation she was in. She also shrugs off torture.
Y'know, just another average woman. Naturally, it's so strange she didn't act like a normal woman. I forget, was she also telepathic, or was that just in "Gulf"?
"I *like* late Heinlein. (Especially Number of The Beast and Friday, but including Sail Beyond the Sunset)."
I don't think they have no value, but I'm a bit hard put to defend any of the three but Friday to anyone who isn't a stone Heinlein fan. Friday, though, is almost shockingly tighter than anything since Moon Is A Harsh Mistress; it's still... a different era of Heinlein, though.
(I'm credited in this FAQ identifying the people at the party in NOTB, by the way, since I pointed out who a number of the more obscure ones were; oh, and Bill Patterson, Heinlein's official biographer, as chosen by Virginia, and one of the founders of the Heinlein Society, is a close old friend.)
(I'm here by a link in Gary's comment on my blog. Can't say why he thought the mere mention of Heinlein in both places was worth linking.)
I cringe to remember I was once a drooling fan of Steeleye Span. As to books (and much else in my youth), memory is largely blank; all I can think of is The Little Prince.
FL mentions The Journeys of McGill Feighan. I enjoyed them in my thirties. I particularly liked that the hero did not become the first Flinger to fling more than the 918 kg limit.
27 NickS: What would be embarassing is if anyone would admit to having read and enjoyed John Norman's Gor series. Lee Gold has said: "I enjoyed them as adventures, skipping over the S&M scenes. As the series wore on I had to skip more and more, until I was skipping entire books."
69 Jackmormon: a wanna-be French rock star -- a rock star who wanted to be French, or a star who wanted to be French rock, or . . . ?
83 Gary: I find it interesting how nearly universal the number of citing in the CT threads of works of sf and fantasy are made, some far more flawed than others. Do me a favor and rephrase that?
140 Gary: I sometimes despair of ever escaping my "underappreciated smart kid" phase. Except that I've outgrown the notion that my IQ makes me a natural aristocrat.
168 text: My only complaint about Crimes and Misdemeanors is that Woody Allen (the actor) is in it. Apart from that I loved it.
207 Tripp: I really, really got into that book [Starship Troopers]. Maybe that is why I am harsh on libertarians - because I used to be one, sort of. I'll assume until further notice that if fewer decades had passed since I read the book (or if I had read it after the Sirian mind rays turned me into an anarchist) I might understand how one of these sentences is relevant to the other.
206 Matt: lines from Dante's Inferno, in the original latin / 209 ben: That must have been quite a challenge. Early Modern Vulgar Latin, that is.
306 Gary: And if you come first to the story that brilliantly introduced an original idea, outlook, perspective, way of reading, thought, only after you've read ten or a hundred or a thousand derivative works first, naturally you can't read it as if it was when it was still new. On another hand, I probably enjoyed both Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers and The Skylark of Space more because I read them in the wrong order.
345 Gary: if the same story works outside an sf setting, some would say that's not real sf; A possibly amusing exercise occurs to me: translate Galaxy Quest to non-sf.
348 Tripp: I think I'm misusing the word fascism. What I was referring to was the notion that corporal punishment was an effective and the prefered method of behavior control. Yeah, I'd say that's a sloppy use of the word.
353 Gary: And to try to be clear: that a science fiction story presents ideas that are not realistic should not exactly be shocking. I'm a lot more willing to suspend disbelief about technology, or for that matter magic, than about the psychology of characters who appear to be human.
360 Gary: As a person, she's a crazed paranoid whack job, by the way. Very agitated about the many plots against her. Shouldn't a proper paranoid insist that they're all subplots (ha ha) in one grand complex scheme? Once upon a time I used to get phone calls from a guy overseas who was considering applying for asylum because - according to someone else - his friends were pressuring him to resume taking his meds; from these calls I got the idea that a key element of paranoia is hypersensitivity of the pattern-detecting faculty.
366 Gary: If there's not something that in the story that makes it a "different world" in some sense that is more literal than you're apparently using those words, than it's definitionally not sf or fantasy. Though it can be (not always is) a neat trick to leave the reader unsure whether or not it is the real world.
367 Gary: the mistake I made by posting about it to Usenet in 1995, causing a set of threads that literally went on for over two years. One thing I'd love to do, given the DejaGoogle database and enough computing power, is find the longest reply chains.
