Sunday, Fun Day (#2)

Sundays I like to post something fun in a puzzle or recreational math line. This starts a little slowly but I do get to some numerological relevance after a build-up, so bear with me if you like that sort of thing ...

The past week saw the United States finally and belatedly coming into compliance with the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, with President Trump’s order to move the American Embassy in Israel to that country’s capital in Jerusalem. 

The aforementioned law, which stipulated that half the State Department’s funding should be forfeited starting in 1999 until they moved our embassy to Israel’s capital, in accordance with usual custom and common sense. In spite of the Act’s passage by wide margins (374-37 in the House, 93-5 in the Senate), the embassy remained unmoved and the State Department saw no inconvenience as a result.

The last of the five Senators who had voted Nay departed the Senate in 2010. That was Robert Byrd, the notorious former Klansman Democrat from West Virginia, who left the Senate upon his death that year, R.I.P.

The date of the Trump announcement is foretold numerologically in the cube root of the year, 2010, when the last Senate opponent to the 1995 bill left office. That cube root is 12.6 2017.

Soon it will be 2018 A.D., but the Hebrew calendar has a different numbering system for the year that started in September. To find it, write 2018. On the next line, copy the 8 below:

2  0  1  8

__ __ __ 8

Then take the digit you just wrote (8) subtract the digit above and to the left, and write that in the next spot. Eight minus one is seven:

2  0  1  8

__ __ 7  8

Continue. Seven minus zero is seven. Seven minus two is five.

2  0  1  8

5  7  7  8

And the Hebrew calendar year is 5778.

This is a triangular number, by the way. (The spirit of Dr. Matrix explained those in this post.) Perhaps President Trump is moved to support Israel’s capital this way because of an affinity with the current Jewish calendar year, since Trump is the 45th President, elected in 2016, and 45 and 2016 are also triangular numbers.

There is a simple test for whether a given number is triangular, which I “discovered”. (It’s not deep mathematics or anything, but I’ve never seen it published.) Take the number, double it, add 0.25, take the square root, and subtract 0.5. If the result is a whole number, the original number was triangular. Applying this to 5778 gives 107, so 5778 is the 107th triangular number: it is 1+2+3+...+105+106+107.

I’ll close with an original seasonal puzzle for the stout-hearted: if you’ve read this far you’re probably a mathie like me. The letters in MERRY CHRISTMAS each stand for a digit, the same letter for the same digit throughout. So MERRY is a five-digit number and CHRISTMAS is a nine-digit number, and the R’s stand for the same digit wherever they appear, as do the S’s and so on. (The word for this kind of puzzle is "cryptarithm".) So here is the puzzle, and it's a tough one: If MERRY is a perfect square and CHRISTMAS is a triangular number, what are the numbers?

“The Kings of the Corona”

My first story, or anyway my first “real” story (with, you know, plot and characters with motivations and all), is “The Kings of the Corona”, and appears in the anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, along with about 20 other stories by other authors. I’ve read the collection with pleasure.

But for me, the experience of doing something I'd always wanted but never managed was thrilling. I’d wanted to write fiction, either science fiction or fantasy, for a long time, and in the past four or five years I've begun thinking more seriously about it. I had started reading John C. Wright's blog about how the culture wars are playing out in SF/F circles and the idea of contributing something to "building our own culture" attracted me. It was the fracas over the 2015 Hugos that stirred me into making preparations—like Mauregal, the hero of my story, I’m very big on methodical preparations—jotting down story notions that randomly occurred to me, and in a few months I had a list of ideas that could form the bases of many stories—but still no actual story begun. 

About this time I read Anthony Marchetta's anthology, GOD, ROBOT. The theme of this anthology—a line of sentient robots that muse on matters of faith and take up religion, and the interactions they have with humanity over the centuries—intrigued me as much as the stories themselves (which are delightful and thought-provoking—if you haven’t read it yet, go get it), and got me thinking more seriously than ever about buckling down and writing.

Then, spring 2016, Declan Finn had Anthony Marchetta and several of the GOD, ROBOT authors on his Catholic Geek podcast, and I made sure to listen. The whole podcast had me enthralled: these were the writers of the stories I’d just read, some of them experienced authors, some (unless my memory is tricking me) only a little further along than I was—except that they’d actually done it while I was still only thinking about it! 

But I was most excited when Anthony remarked that his next project would be an "Arthurian juvenile" anthology: tales of King Arthur and the knights of Camelot, but in any settings the author might like: they could be pirates, cavemen, as wild as you please: or even in the traditional Old England. He planned to invite submissions and make his selections that summer.

As soon as I heard about it, I knew I wanted to be in that anthology. I turned to my "story notions" notebook and looked at all the ideas I’d jotted down. Most of them I couldn’t imagine fitting into an Arthurian frame, even with the wide latitude Anthony had suggested, but there was just one that had possibilities. I still have it, exactly as I wrote it down when it had first occurred to me—please pardon the informality:

Fantasy world: the people are ruled by a king, who had a kind of halo. When king dies, halo moves to someone else, not predictable. If king orders someone to do something, and they don't do it, misfortune befalls them. 

Alternative: world has magic, but con men tell that story to stranger when all they really have is the halo.

Alternative: Kingship transfers to a reluctant peasant. POV his brother? friend?

What other magic enters into the story?

Is the story about the end of the halo spell? Learning something about it? The effect it has on characters?

That was all. If you read "The Kings of the Corona", as I hope you will, you'll see that the final story differs from the original germ in many ways: the "alternatives" I played with in the note fell by the wayside, and I settled on "Corona" (Latin for "crown") as the preferred name for the thing, avoiding the religious charge of "halo". This was because, as I began to work on the story seriously, I realized that the power to make someone do something just by issuing a command would be so overwhelming that it had to be the bad guy who wielded it. If the good guy had the Corona, there'd be no story. The story has to be about fighting against the King of the Corona, and somehow winning, which meant I had to work out a back-story for the Corona, and then show how a Knight of King Arthur defeats it.

I started writing, first describing the little isolated kingdom of Palavel, ruled by a man made king by the Corona, from the point of view of a young man, a brewer's apprentice, named Mauregal. Then I would have the Knight, whom I named Sir Sagradur, arrive ... but as I wrote, I realized I was telling a different kind of Arthurian story.

Pardon me for a digression. A formula that many stories have used, from the Knights of King Arthur all the way to Star Trek, consists of presenting a place with a problem, and a good guy rides up in his horse or spaceship or whatever, solves the problem, basks momentarily in the gratitude of the people, makes a nice speech that shows how he's finer and better than they are, and rides off into the sunset, warp factor 6. Granted, I'm parodying here to make a point—the point that this formula is actually pretty anti-libertarian, anti-dignity-of-the-common-folk in its philosophical implications—but I think you will recognize this formula. 

The Lone Ranger used it. Have Gun, Will Travel used it. James Bond used it, only without the "gratitude of the people" part because in the 007 adventures the general population is so benighted they never even know they've been rescued, or that they were in danger in the first place.

But, as I wrote, it turned out that I wasn't using it. I didn't really set out to write the anti-Paladin story, but somehow that's exactly what I did. Sir Sagradur is a noble character, he’s a much-needed inspiration for Mauregal, and he’s crucial for the plot: if he and his dipsomaniac squire Kincarius hadn't arrived, Christians among pagans, but totally focused on the mission King Arthur had given them, nothing would have happened to save Palavel. But in the end ... well, I’m trying to give up my bad habit of blurting spoilers, so enough already. 

Another thing I didn't set out to do, but did anyway, was write a story that went over Anthony's length-suggestion (well, length-limit, originally). It was supposed to be up to 10,000 words, or not much more. I had started by writing a rough outline, like a detailed plot summary, and then working from that. The summary was about 2,000 words, and as I went along it seemed to be "inflating" at a good ratio of about five finished-words to one summary-word, so I figured I'd be fine. Then I got to the last quarter, and something happened to the ratio ... somehow, that last quarter of the outline took a whole lot more words to turn into final story than the rest of my outline did, and my first draft of the story weighed in at about 15,000 words, if I remember correctly. However, it was 11 PM of the last day of the submission period, so I sent it off with an apologetic cover note. I figured the worst Anthony could say was no, and if that was the decision maybe I could find some other use for it.

But to my great gratification, he liked it! He decided to forgive me the extra few thousand words. I did further revisions, and struck out some of the excess verbiage in that original version over the following few months, but also added others, so that the final version was, I think, around 17,000. As with the periodic attempts to cut the federal budget, somehow the net result of each round of cutting was to make it a little bigger. Oh well, as an e-book it hardly matters, I hope.

As I say, I hope you'll read "The Kings of the Corona", in TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING. In the process of revising it I’ve read it many times myself and I still like it. Now that I’ve read the other stories in the anthology I have to say that it may not be the best story in the book, but it is still the longest. So any way you look at it, this is a book you should get.

And, if you've been giving any thought to doing some writing of your own, I hope you'll be as inspired by this anthology as I was by GOD, ROBOT, and start jotting down your own story ideas. I found writing to be a lot of work, but also great fun, and highly satisfying when you finish.

The Awful Truth About Forgetting

L. Jagi Lamplighter has done it again: the fourth of the Rachel Griffin books is out, as of yesterday. This is a delightful series, based on a storyline devised by Mark Whipple, about a girl whose memory is supposedly perfect—she forgets nothing, and can bring to her mind anything she’s ever seen and replay it like a recording, even slowing it down as needed. This quirk, even more than the fact that she’s British nobility or that she’s a magic user at a school for sorcery, drives the plot. What brings it into high relief is that she lives in a world much like our own a few years in the future, but suffering from a strange sort of amnesia: no one (Rachel included) remembers anything about the great monotheistic religions of the world. (The polytheistic ones are still going strong, however.) Perhaps it’s a parallel world where the monotheistic religions were never invented; that would almost make sense, except there are certain details that don’t fit...

The explanation for the mystery is still elusive, but readers do get some more hints in THE AWFUL TRUTH ABOUT FORGETTING. I had the privilege to read a draft of it awhile back. As I recall, besides dealing with danger and intrigue, Rachel has some more usual schoolgirl fun and anxieties in this book: but lacking Rachel’s perfect memory I’m going to read it again this winter. The cover picture is of a particularly gorgeous and magical scene.

There are also five black and white illustrations in the book, drawn by John C. Wright himself! They ought to be in the table of contents too. If you want to turn to them, I found them in chapters 2, 5, 12, 22, and 37, either the beginning or end of each of these chapters. They also appear in this terrific trailer by Ben Zwycky (music by Gilbert and Sullivan, can’t go wrong!).

Another good installment in Rachel’s story. I hope we don’t have so long to wait for book five!

Pulpy Titles as Starting Points

I've always wanted to write science fiction and fantasy, but only recently had my first success at conceiving of a real story with plot and characters and everything, finishing it, and getting it accepted in an anthology. The story is "Kings of the Corona" and you can (and should!) read it in the anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, edited by Anthony Marchetta. A friend who doesn't use Kindle bought the print edition and showed it to me, and it's very handsome. I was struck by what an excellent gift it would make to some book-lover for Christmas or any other holiday of your choice.

Okay, enough promotion for today. I'm currently working on several writing projects. One is a short story with a working title "The Stowaways" (I hope to rename it eventually) whose first draft I've finished. I'm taking my mind off of that for awhile so I can come back to review and revise it later with a fresh mind: based on how my work went on "Kings of the Corona", it seems to me that a lot of the magic comes in the revising and polishing stage. Meanwhile, I'm also about ready to start manuscript work on a story for Superversive Press's Luna anthology, and I have a pretty long line of other ideas I'm anxious to get cracking on after that.

Then there's this concept from Brad Walker on the Superversive website, of writing serialized fiction on one's blog. I've actually been considering that for awhile, and I'd like to do that too: I hope it would spur me to increase the regularity of both my blogging and my writing.

Where do ideas for good, pulpy SFF stories come from? There's lots of advice out there. One idea is to start with a title and make up a story for it. I decided to experiment with that, and loaded a database with a vocabulary taken from titles of Doc Savage stories, with a few I added myself that I thought had a similar flavor, and set up a routine to combine these at random (though with a few rules) and randomly interspersed with numbers and "of" and "of the". Then I let it crank out some titles.

Most of them were just nonsense, but I kept track of some that seemed interesting:

• The Swords of Saturn
• The Undersea Manhunt
• The Six Magic Moons
• The Poison War
• The Deadly Shadow
• The Mysterious Dimension
• The Two Fantastic Quests
• The Sky Tournaments
• The Disaster Comet
• The Child of Europa
• The Fearsome Labyrinth
• The Future Eagle
• The Crystal Dragon
• The Goblin Star
• The Green Portal
• The Caverns of Io
• The Avenging Pirates
• The Meteors of the Sargasso
• The Midas Ogre
• The Cloud Wizards
• The Fiery Castle
• The Encrypted Arenas
• The Four Suns of Mercury
• The Ocean Ambassadors

There are a lot here that seem suggestive enough that I'd pick them off the stand and thumb through them. "The Four Suns of Mercury"--what's that about? Does some evildoer create a space warp and swipe the whole planet out of the solar system to a new sun, where our heroes give chase and force him to flee to yet another sun, and another? Or could there be miniature artificial suns created to orbit the planet--and for what purpose? Perhaps some extra suns are INSIDE the (surprisingly hollow) planet of Mercury?

Or "The Undersea Manhunt": your fugitive flees in a submarine, in the dark and still mostly-unsettled three-quarters of the globe in the near future. How does the hero catch up with him? What's "The Goblin Star"? Perhaps a tiny white dwarf that's been approaching Sol without our noticing for centuries, and due to pass by shortly--but will the brutish inhabitants of its orbiting planet be content to pass along with it? How the heck can "The Encrypted Arenas" be a thing? Perhaps they're virtual? What's the point of encrypting them? Is something going on in them that the participants need to remain secret?

My evaluation: this is not a bad way to stimulate story ideas. As I say, I already have a longish list of "to-be-worked-ons", but please feel free to take on anything here that strikes your fancy. Maybe leave a comment if you do so I know the title has been done, when I look back on this years later.

Review: Paragons: An Anthology of Superheroes

Russell Newquist of Silver Empire was so good as to send me a review copy of Paragons: An Anthology of Superheroes which I've been enjoying very much this past week. Thirteen tales of original superheroes make up the collection, exploring the theme of heroic adventures with fantastic powers.

There’s a wide variety of length and tone here. Steve Beaulieu’s “Medusa” is a good choice to introduce the anthology, being about a 1000-word short look at a superheroine’s isolation, followed by what I think must be the longest one in the collection, Kai Wai Cheah’s “Nightstick”, an intricate novella of a dark superhero fighting to protect his city in a near-future where many people, both good guys and bad, had suddenly acquired extraordinary powers.

Morgon Newquist, who also edited the book, wrote “Blackout”, which delves into the characters of two heroes: the optimistic and candid Jameson Hirsch, and his more brooding and tormented friend, Michael Turner, in an introduction that for me harkened back to G. K. Chesterton’s stories of Father Brown and his frenemy, Flambeau. The subtitle is “A Serenity City Story,” which makes me hope to see much more of their interactions with each other—and the still-mysterious Rhiannon Argall, for whose love they are rivals.

Jon Mollison’s knack for stories of high adventure with heroes motivated by deep family love comes through again in “Like Father”. Dawn Witzke’s “Deadly Calm Returns” takes a lighter look at a superhero’s family life and had the people in the donut shop where I read it wondering, I’m sure, why that fellow kept bursting into laughter. Declan Finn’s “Weather Witch” has his trademark well-told fantasy action. It's one of the few "origin stories" in this collection, and one of the few not set in a city.

If "Nightstick" had a darkness to it that reminded me of Batman, "Someone is Aiming for You" by J. D. Cowan made me think of The Shadow (though I blush to admit I still only know that series through the Alec Baldwin movie): a dark drama between good and evil metaphysical forces. The final story in the book, "Stalina" by Sam Kepfield, tells of a Khruschev-era idealistic Russian superwoman, devoted to Truth, Justice, and the Soviet Way...like many of the stories here that seem to cry out for sequels, "Stalina" made me want to read more about her.

A lot of these stories could be turned into series, and I hope at least some of them will be. I found Paragons to be a terrific read, and I'll be looking for more.

Thursday Review: WAR DEMONS, by Russell Newquist

WAR DEMONS follows veteran Michael Alexander who returned from the Afghanistan war with PTSD, but he also happens to have to deal with war demons of a more tangible variety. Michael enlisted after 9/11 to fight the people who launched that attack, not only from an overflow of patriotism and thirst for vengeance but also because of the gut-wrenching personal impact he suffered from the event. After he returns he finds that the real battle between good and evil is not only on the battlefields in the Mideast, and may never be described in the history books...

This book is filled with engaging characters and memorable, significant action scenes. The themes are serious and it treats them seriously, but there are moments where the somberness is broken not by levity but by hints of grace coming from above, like a sunbeam breaking through the clouds.

The plot builds to a page-turning rush of action that never lets up (well, eventually the book ends...but not till shortly before that). Some reviewers have remarked the first part of the book was slower; it is, but I didn't have any problem with it: Newquist does a great job setting out the background with intriguing storytelling even before you get to the zombies and vampires and...oh, just read it.

Since it's listed on Amazon with the subtitle (or whatever you call it) The Prodigal Son Book 1, I don't think I spoil anything by mentioning that the end leaves room for a sequel or two, or several, and I'm hoping those will be forthcoming. It's excellent reading.

This Week in Cultural Appropriation: Rarebit Fundido

A beery cheese sauce spiced up with salsa and completed (if desired) with leftover taco meat, cooked in the microwave in the bowl you're going to eat it from. Perfect for a night when the lady of the house is out doing something and you're fixing a fast, simple, tasty for yourself for while you watch old horror flicks on Svengoolie wearing an old T-shirt (because you'll dribble).

Ingredients:
Beer, one bottle: I suggest a strong, dark one like a porter or stout
Cheddar cheese, probably 6 ounces (150 grams)
Salsa: maybe half a cup. Check the expiration date on the jar.
Flour: about a quarter cup
Tortilla chips
Optional:
Garlic, one clove, crushed
Leftover taco meat, to taste


Procedure

Use a microwavable bowl, and--important!--it needs to be tall enough to hold the cheese and beer and still have about an inch of room left at the top. You don't want it to boil over in the microwave.

Grate the cheese into the bowl. Toss in the flour. Shake the bowl up and down and toss the cheese with the flour with your fingers. The goal is to coat the cheese with flour and hopefully not have much flour left. The fat from the cheese and the flour make a kind of roux, without needing butter.

Pour enough beer over the cheese to cover it and stir it around. This will not require all the beer in a bottle, so you will have to find another use for the rest of it. Sorry, forgot to mention that. Hope it doesn't make difficulty. If using garlic, crush it into the mix. Then put it into the microwave for one minute.

After one minute it will be a little melted but not smooth yet. Stir it with a spoon and then microwave it for another minute (take the spoon out).

After the second minute, stir again and it should be smooth. If it isn't, you can try mending it by sifting in a bit of flour, stirring to incorporate it, maybe a bit more, stirring again, and then microwave another minute. It's hard not to get lumps doing this. But usually it comes out pretty well for me.

After you have it smooth, pour in salsa to taste: I glop in a good half cup.

Then stir it up and microwave for another half minute or minute, and remove from the microwave.

If you want to add leftover taco meat, heat the meat in the microwave till hot through, and then pour a layer onto the top of the cheese sauce. Arrange chips around it on a plate if taking a picture for a blog, otherwise just grab the bag and head for the TV set.

Sunday, Fun Day

Reading: DRACULA, for the first time. Astounding Frontiers #2. I’m torn: I want to read John C Wright’s NOWHITHER straight through, and it’s serialized. So I’m skipping it until more of it comes out, though it hurts.

Writing projects underway:
“The Kings of the Corona”: 17000 word story: finished, accepted for the upcoming anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, edited by Anthony Marchetta. Publication date not yet scheduled. Anthony showed us a draft of the cover art, by Dawn Witzke, and it looks great. Probably not long now. #Fantasy #Arthurian #YoungAdult
“The Stowaways” (working title) projected as 8000 word story, or maybe 6000 if I can whittle it down: work in progress. I have about 3000 words so far. #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera




My weekends these days are mostly taken up with work connected with closing Mom’s estate, but I want weekends to be fun days. Here are a joke and a number curiosity.

A Joke

Remembered this old chestnut this afternoon. Modified it slightly:

A young man in the heart of the South wanted to instill his love of his region’s history in his young son, and walked through the park with him one day to the statue of Stonewall Jackson, flourishing his saber, mounted on his horse, frozen in a tableau of dramatic action.

“That, son, is Stonewall Jackson,” he said.

“Wow!” said the little boy.

The statue at once became the boy’s favorite spot in the park. His father noted with pride as the years passed that his son would still return there every Sunday to admire the memorial.

At last the boy graduated high school, and was about to set off for college far away. He and his father went for one last walk through the park to visit their favorite statue one more time, and they stood in silence paying their respects to it.

When they turned to go home again, the young man said, “Dad, I’ve always wondered something.”

“What is it, son?”

“Do you happen to know—who is that man with the funny beard sitting on Stonewall Jackson?”



Recreational Math

Here’s an arithmetical curiosity I noticed that has a pretty good “gee whiz” factor.

It begins with a pleasant little “find the number” puzzle: There is only one number (not counting 1, which is rather a ‘degenerate’ solution) that has this property: it is the product of the first and last digits of its square. Find the number.

To clarify the idea, if you’re not used to how I put these things (so few people are!), if you were to try the number 17 you would square it, 17 x 17 = 289, and then multiply the first and last digits, 2 times 9 = 18. We were hoping to get our 17 back: nope, close but no cigar. In case you want to try finding it, see Answer 1 is below, not to be confused with Answer 2 below.

For a second puzzle, kick the idea up a notch by taking two digits at a time: Find a number that is the product of the 2-digit number at the left and right ends of its own square.

Again, to clarify: if you were testing 2,656, you would square it: 2,656 x 2,656 = 7,054,336. Then you would take the two-digit numbers from the left and right of the square and multiply, hoping to get your 2,656 back: 70 x 36 = 2,520. Nope.

I would think you’d want to use mechanical help to work on this one. A spreadsheet is quite adequate, and it’s a nice little exercise in writing formulas.

The interesting thing is that the one number that answers this puzzle has a curious relationship with the number that worked in the first puzzle.

Okay, you've looked at the answers? Now here's what puzzles me, and I don't have an answer: Why in the world would the numbers that answer the one-digit and two-digit problems have this pattern, where the two-digit answer just repeats the digits of the one-digit answer twice? Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, or maybe there’s a mathematical reason I don’t see.

And no, repeating digits three times doesn’t work for the 3-digit version of the same puzzle.




ANSWER 1: The number is 28. 28 x 28 = 784 and 7 x 4 = 28.





ANSWER 2: The number is 2,288. 2,288 x 2,288 = 5,234,944, and 52 x 44 = 2,288.

Thursday Review: ADVENTURE CONSTANT by Jon Mollison

ADVENTURE CONSTANT: A Tale of the Planetary Romantic, by Jon Mollison

The explanation of the title of this exuberant adventure comes about three-fourths of the way into the book, and is so original and droll—well, and so outlandish—that when I came to it I laughed out loud. By that point, our hero, Jack Dashing, has been in, oh, a half-dozen fights, several chases, a couple rescues, and put a roomful of pompous asses in their place…always acquitting himself honorably and well.

The action begins early, the minute Dashing, a NASA astronaut, finds himself shifted into this parallel Earth as the result of an experimental FTL spacecraft not operating as expected. He is immediately caught up in international intrigue in a mission to rescue beautiful Princess Okanamokoa from the  nefarious agents of the Red Collective, and along with that to find the ambiguous Dr. Abduraxus, the only man who could understand how he came to be here and might get back home. The pace continues throughout the book, which I guesstimate at about 70,000 words, and the conflicts are varied and interesting. It might be easier and less spoilerific to list what it does not have. No vampires; no werewolves; no airplane dogfights. That’s all I can think of offhand.

The characters are colorful and memorable, if not particularly deep: good guys are honorable and sympathetic and you care what happens to them, bad guys are despicable and you're pleased when they get what's coming to them. But I didn't note any agonizing moral choices to be made that would reveal and develop them.

But this book is more about action and adventure and the panoramic setting of Mollison's parallel Earth: a globe divided into the Red Collective, the Shogunate of the Red Dawn, the Machine Empire of Europe, the Allied States, the Hashishim Moonies, and undoubtedly more not yet mentioned (hopefully there will be sequels). The world’s history resembles our own just enough to be vaguely familiar, but as if it had been conceived by a Martian counterpart of Edgar Rice Burroughs creating a setting for tales of exotic derring-do on the Blue Planet.

And that’s the whole idea, of course: Jon Mollison is one of the pulp revolution’s most enthusiastic participants, and hits his stride in this one. ADVENTURE CONSTANT only begins to sample the possibilities of this world, and while it wraps up the story by the book’s end, it still leaves enough characters with mysteries unrevealed that I’m eager for a sequel.

This Week in Cultural Appropriation: Taco-Stuffed Zucchin

Tacos filling used to stuff a zucchini: lower in carbohydrates than the usual tacos in shells made from floured grains. You’ll need one or two large flat rectangular casseroles, like lasagna dishes.

Ingredients: makes 12 “tacos”, enough for 6 people

6 large zucchini
2 cloves garlic, or a small onion: optional
2 pounds ground meat
Taco seasoning to taste (packets, or see my mix recipe below)
12 ounces (340 g) grated cheese of your choice (I used cheddar)
Salt, pepper, olive oil
Taco toppings you like

Procedure

I wasn’t hurrying when I made these, so at the time I didn’t look for ways to parallel-process and save time. But I’ll try to make time-saving directions here. I think this could be done in an hour and a quarter, with the last half-hour as baking time that you could use to prepare a side dish if desired.

I started with preparing the zucchini because it takes awhile: you carve and parboil them before filling and baking them. Parboiling was time-consuming for me because they wouldn’t all fit in the skillet I used. If you want to save time, I’d suggest as your first step putting on a big pot of water, or multiple skillets, to boil while you get the zucchini ready. You could also start browning your ground meat, taking time to stir it now and then.

Split the zucchini lengthwise and chop off the ends. Then use a paring knife to cut around the edge, as though making a little dugout canoe, leaving a shell about a quarter-inch thick (6 mm).

Next, scoop out the insides with a metal spoon. If you have a grapefruit spoon, with a serrated edge, that would be ideal. Don’t cut all the way through, and keep a layer of pulp on all sides, as if to keep the canoe watertight. Reserve the chunks of white zucchini pulp in a bowl.

Heat some water in a skillet or pot that’s big enough, and parboil the zucchini shells about five minutes, in batches if necessary. Set the finished ones flat in a rectangular casserole. For six zucchini I used two big 9x13 inch casseroles.

While parboiling, you could use another skillet to brown your ground meat. I used turkey, but I’m confident beef or something else would be delicious: follow your own inner light. Then of course you drain it and add taco seasoning to it, the same as for regular tacos. I’m not going to give special instructions for that. If you’d like my recipe for taco seasoning mix, I include that below.

While both skillets are perking along, chop the chunks of zucchini pulp, rather fine. Then heat yet another skillet (unless you’re ready to reuse one of them), pour olive oil in it untiul your conscience tells you that you have poured enough, and sautee the pulp. Add crushed garlic andor minced onion, if you‘re using those. My family doesn’t like onions so I used garlic. Give it a stir and then cover it and wait a few minutes. It will reduce in volume quite a bit. I think ten or fifteen minutes should demoralize it pretty completely.

Meanwhile, grate the cheese. If you want to add a little cream cheese to the mix, I won’t tell anyone.

When the pulp has become all mushy and looks a little dry, combine it with the meat in a bowl, and stir in about two-thirds of the grated cheese. This is the filling that goes into the zucchini boats. Time to start heating the oven to 350 F (175 C).

Put a little filling in the first shell, then equal in the next, etc., until they all have a little, then go back and put a little more, and so on till the filling is used up. You always think there will be too much filling, but there never is. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top.

I covered my casseroles with foil before baking, but I’m not sure whether covered or uncovered is best so let freedom reign. Put the casserole(s) in the oven and bake for 25 minutes.

Add toppings as desired. I used chopped tomatoes and baby spinach, sour cream and taco sauce from a bottle.


We liked these a lot, a light but satisfying meal. I missed the crunch of usual taco shells, but that seems to be a general problem with low-carb food. You could get a little crunchy texture by adding a bread-crumb topping before baking, I suppose. Perhaps a better option would be to have a crunchy side like chips with refried beans. Refried beans and spanish rice on the side would make this a hearty meal.


Taco Seasoning Mix

I don’t usually measure this out when use it, I just add what looks like enough and taste-test it. You’ll also want to add salt to taste when you use it, unless you prefer to add some while making the mix.

English measurements:
¼ cup chili powder
3 tbs paprika
2 tbs onion powder
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tbs ground cumin
1 tbs oregano
2 tbs cayenne pepper
1 tbs black pepper

Combine all ingredients and store in airtight crock. Makes about 1 cup.

Metric measurements:

60 ml chili powder
45 ml paprika
30 ml onion powder
15 ml garlic powder
15 ml ground cumin
15 ml oregano
30 ml cayenne pepper
15 ml black pepper

I suppose that would make 225 ml.

The Wood Where Things Have No Names

This is one of those all-too-common weeks where the airwaves and the Web are so full of rancor, so much of it aimed at figuring out whom to call a “White Supremacist” or a “White Nationalist” or a “Nazi”, whether “Alt Left” is a suitable name, whether “mainstream conservatives” believe this or that, and have we denounced everyone belonging to some named group strongly enough—without specifying whether they belong to the group because they say so themselves or because someone else says it of them, or because they fit one person’s definition of the group, or the current dictionary definition, or the definition that held for fifty years until 2008, or what—that it reminded me of this peaceful section from Chapter 3 of Lewis Carroll’s THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS.

It could be a bit of fantasy flash-fiction on its own, but I notice today that in the book it comes just before Alice reaches the Eighth Square, where she becomes a Queen. Was Carroll suggesting this experience of things-in-themselves, without having their names to remember our prejudices about them, was an important step before becoming a mature adult? It's a very thought-provoking passage, to me; I think it's deep enough to be worthy of the excellent Sci Phi Journal, if they published vintage content. I thought it was an especially refreshing read today.


The Wood Where Things Have No Names

She came very soon to an open field, with a wood on the other side of it: it looked much darker than the last wood, and Alice felt a little timid about going into it. However, on second thoughts, she made up her mind to go on: “for I certainly wo’n’t go back,” she thought to herself, and this was the only way to the Eighth Square.

“This must be the wood,” she said thoughtfully to herself, “where things have no names. I wonder what’ll become of my name when I go in? I shouldn’t like to lose it at all—because they’d have to give me another and it would be almost certain to be an ugly one. But then the fun would be, trying to find the creature that had got my old name! That’s just like the advertisements, you know, when people lose dogs—‘answers to the name of “Dash:” had on a brass collar’—just fancy calling everything you met “Alice,” till one of them answered! Only they wouldn’t answer at all, if they were wise.”

She was rambling on in this way when she reached the wood: it looked very cool and shady. “Well, at any rate it’s a great comfort,” she said as she stepped under the trees, “after being so hot, to get into the—into what?” she went on, rather surprised at not being able to think of the word. “I mean to get under the—under the—under this, you know!” putting her hand on the trunk of the tree. “What does it call itself, I wonder? I do believe it’s got no name—why, to be sure it hasn’t!”

She stood silent for a minute, thinking: then she suddenly began again. “Then it really has happened, after all! And now, who am I? I will remember, if I can! I’m determined to do it!” But being determined didn’t help much, and all she could say, after a great deal of puzzling, was, “L, I know it begins with L!”

Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes, but didn’t seem at all frightened. “Here then! Here then!” Alice said as she held out her hand and tried to stroke it; but it only started back a little, and then stood looking at her again.

“What do you call yourself?” the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!

“I wish I knew!” though poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, “Nothing, just now.”

“Think again,” it said: “that wo’n’t do.”

Alice thought, but nothing came of it. “Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?” she said timidly. “I think that might help a little.”

“I’ll tell you, if you’ll move a little further on,” the Fawn said. “I ca’n’t remember here.”

So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice’s arms. “I’m a Fawn!” it cried out in a voice of delight, “and, dear me! you're a human child!” A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.

Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to cry with vexation at having lost her dear little fellow-traveller so suddenly. “However, I know my name now,” she said, “that’s some comfort. Alice—Alice—I wo’n’t forget it again….”

Censoring the Past

I was watching the 1934 movie GENTLEMEN ARE BORN on TCM the other day, and came to a scene where one of the young women, who had been working in a library, was called on the carpet by her stern old boss. It seems she had heard a report that the young lady was no longer living with her female roommate; and so WHERE might she be living now? The library must not have scandal attached to it, after all.

The young woman pleaded that she needed this job, because…she had just gotten married the other day.

Why didn’t you tell me this? demanded the boss lady. Then of course you cannot continue to work for us. You know the policy.

Terrible, right? A young woman, one of our main sympathetic characters, thrown out of her job because she had gotten married! And then the boss lady said this:

“You have been depriving some other girl with no outside means of support from obtaining a position here.”

Huh.

There was a reason for this policy…and the reason, whatever we may think of its effect on our heroine, was…to take care of society’s less fortunate, according to the economic and social circumstances of the time.

It was an interesting moment. That’s why I went back and played it again, and noted the exact words that I reproduce here. It’s not terribly deep, but it stopped me for a moment, and made me think a bit. It made me sympathize with the cross old termagant with her hair in a bun: she knew what was right, and it was right in her eyes because it was one of the few measures they could take to spread scarce jobs around in a world where people were going hungry for lacking them. The past is a different country, as someone famous has said.

Another allegedly famous person (at least he has a blue checkmark in Twitter) is John Levenstein, and he also said something just Wednesday, as the nation is in a frenzy of statue destruction:

“Now that we’re talking, there are casually racist +sexist +homophobic moments in classic movies that don’t need to be classics anymore.”

I suppose the moment I just described is one of the ones Mr. Levenstein would like to get rid of.

Of course, making people think is the last thing the modern SJW wants to do.

Socrates and the Hugos

Writing projects underway:

• “The Kings of the Corona”: 17000 word story: finished, accepted for the upcoming anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, edited by Anthony Marchetta. Publication date not yet scheduled. #Fantasy #Arthurian #YoungAdult 
• “The Stowaways” (working title): projected as 8000 word story. #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera

Socrates and the Hugos

I was at the agora the other day buying some baklava and some ripe olives stuffed with feta and nuts when I ran into my old friend, Socrates, and we fell to talking about the Hugo Awards. Our dialog went something like this:

JUSTIN M TARQUIN: It depresses me that the Hugo Awards nowadays can go to mediocre works as long as their authors espouse popular leftist political viewpoints, or have personal identities that the political left associates with a “victim group”, rather than to works that deserve the award.

SOCRATES: Is there, then, some quality a work can have, besides giving homage to leftist political causes, that would better deserve the award?

JMT: Why, of course, Socrates. I think the Hugo award should go to science fiction that’s fun to read, and that excites the imagination, inspires wonder, draws the reader to a sense that the world is grander and finer than he might have supposed.

S: Such an award would be useful for guiding readers who desire such science fiction! But, of course, then it would not be useful for leftist readers who prefer science fiction that echoes their political views and congratulates them for holding them.

JMT: Surely, Socrates, you do not suggest that such puerile sycophancy is as suitable to an award called “the most prestigious in Science Fiction” as the criteria I have mentioned.

S: That does seem an odd state of affairs, does it not? Perhaps there is something to be learned from considering the question. Here, let us sit upon this bench and snack on our olives while we talk. Well then: the matter before us is what is ‘suitable’. I believe we are agreed that suitability is a quality that depends on its object.

JMT: What do you mean, Socrates?

S: I mean what you already implied when you questioned the suitability, not of political bias per se, but bias in a particular object: namely, in an award called the most prestigious in Science Fiction. Are not the robes of a king suitable to a king?

JMT: Of course.

S: But would they be suitable for a shepherd?

JMT: Clearly not, Socrates!

S: Or a shepherd’s tunic, would it be suitable for a surgeon?

JMT: No.

S: Or again, would a surgeon’s outfit be suitable for an olive-picker?

JMT: Not at all.

S: But the garb of each of these men would be suitable to himself, or another in his station?

JMT: Correct.

S: Then suitability is a relationship that matches a subject and an object?

JMT: You make it perfectly clear.

S: But what if a shepherd’s master were pleased to call him a king. Would royal robes then become suitable to him, while he remain a shepherd?

JMT: Why, no.

S: Or say that a surgeon’s patient insists upon calling him a shepherd. Would it then be suitable that he perform surgery in the stained and dirty tunic of a keeper of flocks?

JMT: No, no.

S: Then what is suitable depends not on what a thing is called, but upon what it truly is?

JMT: Clearly so, Socrates.

S: Then to inquire whether awarding the Hugo to works that tickle the egos of leftists is suitable or not, we must determine what the Hugo Award actually is: and not merely what it is called. As you have remarked, the award is called “the most prestigious award in science fiction,” but is it that in reality? And again, does “prestigious” mean that it is in reality the award most worthy of respect, or only that people believe it so or call it so? There are layers of shadow and illusory perceptions to be peeled away before we arrive at the reality of what the Hugo Award really is, my good Tarquin.

JMT: But, Socrates, here we are only returning to what I began by saying: I want the Hugo Award to go to science fiction that is fun and uplifting. One might say, to works that are enjoyable to read and enjoyable afterward to reflect upon.

S: Then let us begin there our inquiry into what the Hugo Award is. Is the Hugo Award bestowed to such works?

JMT: It once was. But not for many years, no.

S: Let us confine ourselves to the Hugo award of today, since that is where your complaint lies. Do you determine how the Hugo is bestowed?

JMT: No; though I may vote.

S: Is your vote dispositive of the result?

JMT: No.

S: Then many others also vote?

JMT: Certainly.

S: Do these others share your desires for the Hugo?

JMT: Sadly, most do not.

S: Is it widely known that those who vote for the Hugo do not share your notions of merit?

JMT: Quite so. Indeed, the news criers hail the results of each Hugo ceremony as a victory for trendy left-wing victim groups.

S: Then do even the winners of the award see it as a prize for political views and group identity?

JMT: None that I know of have said so explicitly, though some have made public statements after winning that indicate what is uppermost in their mind is not the qualities of the work they wrote, but rather their personal identity as a member of a group underrepresented among Hugo laureates. Possibly they were led in their remarks by the agendas of those who reported their words. But it would seem impossible they are not aware and approving of how their personal identities influence the decision.

S: What of people like yourself who object to the present nature of the Hugos?

JMT: There was a movement called the Sad Puppies that strove to nominate works that did not meet the left-wing political criteria; but though they succeeded in gaining nominations, the results of the election among the nominees chose “No Award” over any non-left-approved works.

S: And the authors whose work is passed over by this system, do they understand the nature of the award?

JMT: They do, indeed. I have even heard an author I favor say in a podcast that he would be embarrassed to win and thereby join the ranks of the recent winners, their work is so unimpressive.

S: Why then, all the world appears to understand the meaning of this award. The organizers know, the fans who vote for leftist works know, the Sad Puppy sympathizers know, the authors whose works do not win know, even the authors whose works do win Hugos appear to know that the point of the award is to gratify the political left’s view of the world. And therefore, you are wishing the award to signify what the world does not expect it to signify. Indeed, if works that satisfied your definition of merit were to win Hugo awards, the public understanding would be that the authors belong to leftist-approved groups, and that the works promoted leftist-supported positions, which they do not; and why would you wish the public to be so deceived?

JMT: But, Socrates, I think you misunderstand. The Hugo award is supposed to be an award for the best science fiction, chosen by the fans themselves.

S: You must explain this to me. When you say “supposed to be”, by whom is it supposed that the Hugo award is given to science fiction that first of all provides the most enjoyment to readers? For we have just established that it is generally understood by all involved that the Hugos are awarded politically.

JMT: Why, but the other is what the organizers of the Hugo award themselves say of it.

S: Ah, yes, it is then a boast that certain people make of their own project.

JMT: Well, yes.

S: In my life I have heard many who made boasts for themselves, and when I have inquired into the basis of their vaunting I very often found it lacking. But has the practice of self-puffery vanished since my more active years?

JMT: Well, no.

S: Is there not, in fact, an entire industry now devoted to self-aggrandizement, wherein fantastic sums of money are expended, and the ceaseless labor of thousand upon thousands of highly-skilled workers, present to the public hundreds of times a day, on every billboard, on every cereal package, every coffee cup, interspersed every few seconds in every television show or radio broadcast, on the margins of every Web site, these self-same substanceless boasts that the secret to happiness lies in consuming the goods and services they offer?

JMT: Indeed, it is so, Socrates.

S: And every two or four years, barrages of similarly vain boasts about candidates for public office?

JMT: You have said a mouthful, Socrates.

S: Then have not the people become skeptical of such claims?

JMT: True, Socrates, and yet if an award like the Hugo is to be seen as a claim about a work of science fiction, are not those who make false claims doing evil by telling falsehoods, even if they are not believed?

S: We can agree, Tarquin, that to speak falsehood, knowingly, is clearly wrong. For the value of language lies in its power to exchange truths among men; to put even a single deliberate falsehood into language is like striking a gold coin with an admixture of lesser metal: the surfeit of counterfeits in circulation debases the value even of the true coins. But when the choice of an awardee is divided among hundreds, they cannot all be held responsible for the choice of the group: but each man is responsible only for his own choice. No more could a man sentenced to die by a jury of five hundred think of the entire jury as his enemies, but only those who cast the vote for his condemnation. But, Tarquin, are not those voting for the winner of the Hugo award asked to vote for whichever nominee they feel should receive it?

JMT: Why, yes.

S: And surely there is no thought of any voter not voting for the work they wish to receive the award?

JMT: Well, no.

S: Then, among the voters it would seem that no question of dishonesty occurs. It is an instance of what you might call “free speech”.

JMT: And yet it still seems to me that the works that win a Hugo award ought to deserve to win it.

S: Why, but whether or not the Hugo winners deserve to win Hugos is a question we have not yet touched upon, Tarquin!

JMT: What do you mean? Have we not been discussing it this whole while?

S: Not at all! Up until now we have only considered to what sort of qualities the Hugo award actually does attest. Now that we have established that it awards works on the basis of stroking the egos of leftists, and is understood to do this both by the fans who vote for it, the people who receive it, the authors who do not receive it, as well as to you and to me, we can at last proceed to the question of whether the Hugo and its winners are suitable to one another.

JMT: And are they, then?

S: Is it not quite clear, Tarquin? The nature of the present-day Hugo award is that it is given to those works voted in by a group who are strongly disposed to favor works that promote leftist ideology and are written by authors who themselves support leftist ideology, by their public opinions and identities as members of groups the political left is pleased to extol. Therefore, works that promote such ideology, written by such authors, are perfectly suitable to the Hugo awards.

JMT: Do you mean to say that the Hugo winners, in fact, do deserve Hugo awards?

S: I think it would be more complete, elegant, and illuminating, to say that these authors and this award deserve each other.

JMT: I confess I am floored by this conclusion, though I can find no fault with the logic.

S: We must follow the argument where it leads us, Tarquin.

JMT: Why, but Socrates, it occurs to me that there is nothing about your argument that is specific to the Hugo awards. This would apply to any honorary award whatsoever—to the Oscars, the Emmies, the Grammies, the Edgars; to the kings and queens of all the proms, all the big-city parades and all the small-town festivals; to prizes that are awarded with rank nepotism, cheating, to contests with slipshod ballot-counting, where errors change the result. Can you say that all of the winners of all of these contests deserve the awards they receive?

S: Absolutely, Tarquin. Though, of course, the honors that they get, and deserve, are worthless in such cases.

JMT: I can only say, Socrates, that this would come as a great shock to the many thousands, the millions, who spend a great deal of time arguing about whether the winners of all these contests deserve their prizes, or whether it should have gone to another.

S: It does seem a great waste of time, when they might be arguing about the nature of beauty, or justice, or of goodness, of piety, or the nature of poetic inspiration, or the immortality of the soul, or of knowledge, truth and wisdom itself.

JMT: Yes, well, most people would consider arguing about all those things to be a waste of time.

S: A waste of time?

JMT: So they say.

S: Discussing truth, beauty, and virtue?

JMT: I’m afraid so.

S: While arguing about who deserves a trophy is worthwhile?

JMT: I can only report what I have heard men say, Socrates.

S: Well. I have nothing to say.

Coincidentally, we had just finished the baklava.

Remembering Mom

We lost my Mom this spring, after she had lived a long, productive and generally happy life. As a high school English teacher she touched the lives of thousands of students, and her personality was the sort that made an impression. She had a way of speaking that made some people ask whether she was British or where she had picked up her “accent”; being a small-town Iowa girl she didn’t quite know how to answer. At last someone, I think an instructor at a course she took when she went back to college for her Master’s degree, told her, “I can identify your accent: it’s called ‘perfect diction’.” That brought on one of Mom’s hearty laughs. 

She was always a lover of learning and literature, of ideas and their clear expression. Sometimes while reading she would come upon a particularly well-constructed sentence and would share it with us so we could appreciate it with her. It might be a figure of speech or a turn of phrase that used language to exquisite effect, or some humorous play on words or juxtaposition of ideas that tickled her. The passive voice in Sinclair Lewis’s remark in Babbitt that “he was married by the first girl he met” delighted her, as did the expression “a bear of very little brain” in Winnie-the-Pooh. She would apply the latter to herself when she forgot something sometimes: she never took herself too seriously.

I had the good luck to attend my senior year in the same high school where she taught, and to have her as my English teacher. She introduced the teaching of composition with writing sentences, went on to paragraphs, and thence to essays. The many books we read for class provided topics for the essays. She taught us what I suppose they now call “critical thinking”, but I remember it being more substantial and useful than what I hear people saying of such instruction nowadays. For instance, when we read Steinbeck’s OF MICE AND MEN [spoiler ahead], she asked the class what we thought of the conclusion, where George kills his friend Lennie rather than let him be arrested and tried and executed. The students invariably would say George had done the right thing. She would invite discussion of the reasoning a bit, and then she would ask them what they would think and do if their next door neighbor were to kill a man. At this, the same students would gasp, and say that would be dreadful, and they would call the police at once. Then she would say, well, but what if the murdered man were simple-minded, like Lennie? Of course that would make no difference!, they would protest. She would add, one by one, the circumstances that they had only a moment earlier seriously argued had exculpated George, and the class rejecting each of them, would become thoughtful. Finally, she asked what tricks Steinbeck had used in his narrative that led them along to a viewpoint that in real life they strenuously reject: continually describing Lennie with comparisons to an animal, juxtaposing his murder with the story of the necessary killing of a beloved dog, and so on. By the end of the discussion, the class had grasped that Steinbeck had written a piece of propaganda that leads the reader along in a rather creepy way. It was exactly the sort of critical thinking that we need more of today.

In her college days Mom had come across St. Thomas Aquinas and had been impressed by his exposition of Catholic theology, which she felt had given her a religious experience. I hadn’t read anything of the Angelic Doctor back in high school, but I think Mom must have had the Summa Theologica in mind when she assigned us to write an essay of opinion, because she specified that we had to explain, fairly, the arguments that disagreed with our own, in the course of showing why our opinion was better. This was one of the essays I had to re-write for her. I chose to write on my opinion that astrology was bunk, and Mom wouldn’t accept my finished product because I had failed to give cogent arguments contradicting my opinion, to show that I had answers for them. 

“Arguments supporting astrology?” I protested. “But there aren’t any!” 

“No argument, no essay!” she shot back, and I had to choose another topic. I’ve thought of that “no argument, no essay” many times since, particularly since internet forums and social media have sometimes tempted me toward completely pointless repartee against ideas that haven’t the slightest justification. Why bother in such cases? If there’s nothing to be said for an idea, why bother knocking it down? If someone holds forth for an idea with NO rational basis, why try to reason them out of it? They’re obviously not going to be swayed by reason or they wouldn’t have that opinion in the first place. No argument, no essay.

I probably resist a good two-thirds of such arguments by remembering this.

There were a number of pithy quotations that Mom found relevant enough to raise them again and again her whole life. One was Edmund Burke’s “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”: she was keen on personal responsibility to stand up to bad guys. Another of her favorites was Henry David Thoreau’s “Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.”

And one of her all-time favorites was from Kahlil Gibran’s THE PROPHET: “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” The idea that there is a purpose to all suffering, and a blessing attached to it that we can receive in no other way, struck her as a deep truth. I believe it helped to sustain her during the long, and to her wearisome, years of her declining health.

She was a bear of a very good brain, indeed. 

A Tale of Two Hecklings

So two undercover drama critics in New York City attended the "Shakespeare in the Park" production of Julius Caesar in order to disrupt it by denouncing the cast and audience. Some people are referring to them as "free speech advocates" for this action, which is rather problematic, since disrupting someone else's free speech is hardly free speech. On the contrary, it's an instance of the "heckler's veto" that we have deplored when it was used to prevent Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking at Berkeley in February.

Yes, but I have to ask myself why I feel so differently about the actions of these two than about the "hecklers" (rioters, actually) who kept people from hearing what Milo had to say. Is it just because I am a hypocrite, and feel more in sympathy with the position of these two hecklers, and with Milo, than I am with the Berkeley thugs or the Julius Caesar crowd's revelling in assassination porn (if you just woke up from a coma, the producers are using the play to depict the murder of Donald Trump to the infantile glee of their audience)? No doubt my hypocrisy is part of it. But I also see some objective differences between these two hecklings.

(1) The two Caesar hecklers are named Laura Loomer and Jack Posobiec. No one knows the identities of the Berkeley rioters; they appeared in hoods.

(2) Loomer and Posobiec did no violence to anyone's person or property. The Berkeley rioters both hurt people and destroyed things.

(3) After the two were escorted from the scene by security, the play continued, so its "message" was delivered. Milo's talk was cancelled.

(4) The "message" that raised the hecklers' hackles was not an actual idea that you could express verbally: it was the mere depiction of Julius Caesar as Donald Trump, so that his assassination could be presented as a kind of editorial cartoon. This is speech rather in the same way that exotic dancing or burning flags is speech: it is protected, legitimately, but I would call it peripheral rather than core free speech. Milo's speech, by contract, would clearly have been core free speech: a man standing up to speak his opinions, including opinions about public policy, in plain language before a crowd who had come to hear them.

(5) Loomer and Posobiec knew that they would get no sympathy from the local government of NYC: they really were, at least in their minds, speaking truth to power. The Berkeley rioters knew that Berkeley would be on their side rather than Milo's. They were using power to counter truth.

(6) Last, and to my mind most important, Loomer was arrested and charged with trespassing for her outrageous behavior. The Berkeley rioters were not charged. I've read that the Berkeley police stood by watching as they did what they had come to do. One of the most important aspects of civilly disobedient protest actions is that the person who performs them is engaged in minor infractions of the law and is willing to accept the punishment that the law applies for such disobedience. Martin Luther King did so, Henry David Thoreau did so, Loomer did so; the Berkeley thugs did not.

I don't see Loomer and Posobiec's actions as examples of free speech. In a society that properly safeguards and respects free speech, their actions would not be permitted. But then, neither would the Berkeley rioters have gone unpunished. And with the Left glorying more and more in perverse, demented fantasies of violence against the Right, and with shots having now been fired in an attempt to murder a Republican congressman, I can't help but feel heartwarmed by these two standing up and delivering their own message to the sick, snobbish theatergoers in Central Park.

The worthy Robert Kroese says such tactics are stupid and don't work, and that's probably true; but it's not like I have a tactic that would work in my shirt pocket. If he has one in his I wonder that he's not using it. The not-so-esteemed David French says I'm guilty of tribalism for defending these two. I've never been in favor of tribalism; but then I've also never lived through a civil war when New Yorkers in Central Park cheered on the murder of people like me. This is not where we want to be. But it's where the Left has brought us.

Letter from NaNoWriMo, and Reply

Received Feb 10, 2017, 4:32 PM, from NaNoWriMo

What we stand for, what we stand against.

Dear Wunderscribbler,

As a creative writing nonprofit, we’re not a political organization. We don’t endorse candidates or support any particular party. In an ideal world, we would focus only on empowering people to write.

Yet we find ourselves in a time where people’s ability to tell their stories—and even to safely exist—is at stake.

NaNoWriMo strives to be a gateway and sanctuary for people’s voices. Our guiding belief is that every person’s story matters, and we celebrate the inclusion of all religions, races, genders, sexualities, and countries of origin. We help people find a safe space to be who they are—creators, storytellers, and world changers.

Because of this core organizational value, we join the many voices standing against the presidential executive order that bans refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

For over 15 years, we’ve had the privilege of writing alongside a community from over 200 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. We don’t build walls. We strive to dissolve borders through stories, the vital human narratives that expand our worlds.

So while we are not a political organization, we feel moved to take action.

In response to the executive order, as well as any future government efforts that threaten people’s basic freedoms, we will:

• Celebrate creativity over apathy, diversity over fear, and productivity over despair.
•  Welcome all stories and continue to make NaNoWriMo a safe space for all writers.
•  Advocate for the transformative power of storytelling to connect people and build a better world.

If you have concrete ideas for how we can work toward these goals (or if you have feedback about anything in this message), please share your thoughts.

Thank you for being part of NaNoWriMo. We are all individuals of different beliefs and backgrounds, but we come together through a shared passion. We pledge to remember that, and to look to our community as a model and inspiration, as we get to the work ahead.

With gratitude and optimism,
Grant Faulkner
Executive Director


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Thanks!

I also favor people's ability to exist, and to tell their stories, and celebrate the inclusion of all religions, races, genders, and sexualities, and countries of origin.

In words composed by a great speechwriter, "it is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American flag.

"And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the windswept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky, they fill their hearts with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same Almighty Creator." (Inaugural Address, President Donald Trump)

I fail to see, however, why these commitments would move you to send an email on behalf of NaNoWriMo opposing the executive order that temporarily suspends immigration from a list of nations, compiled under President Obama as posing a particular risk of terrorist attacks, until the nations in question can comply with informational needs of the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to give our government reasonable assurances that their citizens entering our country are who they say they are, and do not present a risk of attacking our people. Perhaps you have not read the executive order and are relying on mainstream media accounts for your understanding of it. The order is here. Whatever one says about the wisdom or need for such an order, the immigration policy of one nation is hardly relevant to the business of writing novels in a certain month.

It seems more likely that you felt a strong need to be affirmed in your hatred for all things Trumpian, and an assurance that the people you associate with share that hatred, so that you could pretend that it makes you better than people who do not share it. At some level, you must know that the hatred that makes Trump opponents physically attack people going to listen to a Trump supporter speak in Berkeley, and makes them scream epithets at Trump supporters in the street, and physically block a Trump appointee from entering a school in the District of Columbia, and physically attack people they thought were Trump voters in Chicago, in Maryland, in Virginia and Connecticut, California, and Florida, and murder a man in Georgia--this Trump-hatred is not a virtue, but a terrible, soul-destroying sin: and if you ever calm down enough, you will also be able to see that a nation's measures to protect its borders are by contrast not hatred at all.

In any case, this kind of bilge from NaNoWriMo I don't need. I've unsubscribed to your list. I trust you will be pleased.

Justin M. Tarquin

Getting along ... or not

At the end of 2018, a curious event will occur that has happened before only twice: at the end of 2010 and at the end of 1926. The first occasion, at the end of the third year of Calvin Coolidge's presidency (he took office in 1924 on the death of Warren G. Harding), was the first time that the US had had Republican presidents for exactly half of the preceding century: 1926 completed the fiftieth such year.

For the next fourscore and four years the number of Republican presidency years was consistently higher than 50, as high as 64 for the end of the Eisenhower administration and the beginning of Kennedy's. From that high point, the running-century total crept steadily downward as the Reconstruction years aged out of the window, finally reaching the exact 50-50 split between Republican and Democrat presidency-years at the end of President Obama's second year in office. (Of course, for the earlier years of this analysis, the beginning of the 100-year window included a lot of time before the GOP was even founded in 1854, and in which the older parties would have been included. This is why the two-decade Roosevelt/Truman administrations made no dent in the Republican total: that total included no years at all from the period 100 years before those two Democratic presidents.)

Under Obama the percentage of Republican presidency-years over the previous century went down to its post-Coolidge minimum of 48% in 2012, and remained there for the rest of his time in office, as the Obama years being added onto the front replaced Wilson years departing from the rear. But at the end of 2018, we will once again be at an exact 50-50 split, divvying the time evenly between the two modern parties.

I bring this up, not because I'm obsessed with puzzles and numerical trivia (oh, who am I kidding? Of course because I'm obsessed with puzzles and numerical trivia), but (also) because it shows something being forgotten in today's rancorous political feuding: a simple fact, one that anyone would think painfully obvious, but somehow so very conveniently forgotten, so temptingly neglected, that in partisan times like ours most of us would rather sweep it under the rug. Still, putting an elephant (or even a donkey) under a rug is actually not a practical way of disposing of it, or of the problems it's going to cause. So I propose that we simply face it:

This country is about half Democrats and half Republicans.

About half the time, Democrats are going to run the federal government, and about half the time, Republicans will.

This of course has policy implications, to anyone who thinks about a government program that he likes while envisioning it in the control of people he trusts, but not thinking about how the other party would use it. Did Republicans like expanded government surveillance powers under GWB? Well, how about under Obama? Did Democrats think the IRS targeting conservative groups was, well, hilarious? Are they still laughing now the Trump will be controlling it? How about the Department of Education: wonderful that the federal government can impose Common Core on everyone, right, Democrats? Oh my gosh, now Betty DeVos is the Secretary of Education--pull your kids out of the public schools, quick! And Republicans, before you get too contented with the thought that Trump is going to make all your gripes go away for good, remember that half the country is still Democrats; his victory in 2016, no matter how much of a relief it was to his supporters, was still a historically slim Electoral College victory, and that was with the very. Worst. Candidate. Ever, as his Democratic opponent. Who better than Clinton the Democrats will run in 2020 is unclear, but they could hardly find anyone worse.

In other words, half the country is Democrats, and half are Republicans.

There was a marvelous movie, made probably fifty or sixty years ago. If I ever knew its name I've forgotten it now, along with nearly everything about it except for the basic premise. But the premise was so mythically, allegorically significant that I'm sure I'll remember it always. I doubt that watching the movie again would even be as stimulating as simply contemplating the situation. A group of prisoners, probably in the American South in the 1950s or earlier, are being transported in a van, manacled together in pairs. Or maybe they were manacled to links welded to the van itself, but the guards were short one pair of cuffs, and so the last two prisoners had to be handcuffed to each other: a black man and a white man. They object to being so attached, because neither one likes the other on principle, but the guards laugh off their complaints.

The van has a road accident, and everyone aboard is killed (I suppose), except for our pair. The two of them escape, still cuffed together, and have poignant adventures as they are forced to work together to make it to freedom. I recall one point where they were trying to ascend a steep, muddy slope, in the rain: maybe they had been going through a gorge, and a flash flood would soon send a wave upon them that would drown them both unless they made it to the top. But for a long time each kept trying to climb without considering the other one's difficulties, and so both kept falling back again. Eventually they caught on that they had to cooperate to make it up together, but quickly forgot this lesson again as soon as their danger was past.

The most dramatic, haunting, and absurd scene came later, when their frustration with each other reached a climax and their tempers were worn away to nothing, and they set upon each other in an insane fight. Each of them was shouting, "I'll kill you!" at the other--still manacled together, of course--as we in the audience sat open-mouthed at the lunacy of trying to corpsify your handcuff-mate while still desperate to evade your pursuers.

The allegory was presented in terms of racial prejudice, but it could apply as well to today's centrifugal politics.

Unfortunately, recognizing the relative desirability of peace over war does not help to achieve it. There is something called the J-curve theory of revolutions, which my brother once described to me as "first things get better, then things get worse, then things go kablooey". Wikipedia has a longer but hardly more vivid description. If the Left considered the Obama years as "things getting better" and the Trump years as "things getting worse", perhaps the outrageous behavior we're witnessing has its explanation there. Will it escalate still further in the years ahead?

I have a feeling it's going to be hard to write science fiction concerning the decades ahead that won't quickly be overtaken by events. Writing good, inspirational SF/F is one way of fixing the culture, but fixing a culture is slow work: pray that we have enough time left. And get back to writing.

I have about seven hundred words done on my second story, and hope to get at least a couple thousand done over the weekend.