Failing Better

San Diego Comic-Con: Thursday

2008-07-25T15:45:02Z

If I were to share with you exactly how I spent my Thursday at Comic-Con, you'd likely be bored out of your gourd, because I'm here on behalf of the SCI FI Channel, and so I'm spending almost all of my time working, which means that I'm wandering the exhibit hall researching upcoming movies, games, DVDs, books, toys, and so on, as well as strengthening my relationships with the PR reps and creators who work at those companies. But I did manage to have a few encounters which might be of interest to the friends who drop by here.

I had a chance to chat with legendary EC writer and artist Al Feldstein (there we are below), whom I last met in 1972 (gulp!) at the EC Comics Convention at Manhattan's McAlpin Hotel. But this time I wasn't just an annoying kid asking irritating questions. (Who knows? It might be that my only progress since that time is that I've now become an annoying adult asking irritating questions.) Since I have a story being published in the upcoming issue of Postscripts magazine for which he drew the cover, we were able to connect better than we did 36 (yikes!) years ago.

Another moment worthy of note Thursday is that in the midst of mining the exhibit hall for information on upcoming releases, I did take a break to sneak off to the panel on Golden and Silver Age comics, a photo of which you can see if you click through here. Not to be too maudlin about it, but considering the collective ages of Al Jaffee (87), Russ Heath (81), Larry Lieber (76), Jerry Robinson (86), and Al Feldstein (82), the time we're likely to get to hear these guys spiel about the old days in the comics business is growing short, and I didn't feel I could pass it up without regretting it.

Al Jaffee explained that he'd originally wanted to draw Superman and Batman, but "I could not figure out where the muscles were located." Larry Lieber explained that his choice of drawing hand was based on forcing himself to follow his big brother Stan Lee's example, and so, "I used my left hand and regretted it ever since." Al Feldstein shared that Bill Gaines never wanted to go into the family business, that he hated it because he hated his father, and that, "He didn't want to be a publisher, he wanted to be a chemistry teacher." Interesting guys all, and you'd better track them down to chat while you still have a chance.

After the panel, I made these old guys feel even older by telling Al Jaffee about the time I got him to draw me a sketch in the midst of the 1974 Reuben Awards banquet, and Jerry Robinson about the sketch he drew for me during the famous 1972 Stan Lee at Carnegie Hall event.

At the Random House party later that night, I caught up with the gracious editors who'd invited me, as well as their authors Greg Bear, Connie Willis, David Williams, C. E. Murphy, and others. My last stop of the night was the IGN party at a restaurant in the Hard Rock Hotel, where I remained until my body suddenly remembered the three-hour time difference, and told me to head back to my room.

If you'd like to see photos of any of this, all of yesterday's Comic-Con pics are now online, captioned as well as I'm likely to get them before I return home Sunday night.

San Diego Comic-Con: A Thursday Quickie

2008-07-25T06:27:16Z

After waking up at 4:15 a.m. East Coast time, driving 100 miles to Dulles Airport, flying to San Diego, wandering the never-ending exhibit hall of Comic-Con International for hours, and then hitting the Random House and IGN parties in the evening, I'm wiped out, much too exhausted to fully caption the many photos I took today.

But I figure I should make some noise to prove that I was actually at the con today. So here's a photo of me with Larry Lieber, co-winner of this year's Bill Finger Award (which he shares this year with the late Archie Goodwin, a former boss of mine). He was the first scripter of stories about Iron Man and Thor, and wrote many of Marvel's beloved pre-superhero monster tales, such as "Fing Fang Foom."

And, oh, by the way, he also happens to be the younger brother of Stan Lee, yet another former boss of mine.

One of my fondest memories of Larry is being in attendance with him at a party at Tony Isabella's penthouse apartment on top of the Hotel Edison in (I think) 1975), at which he and Tony and I ran back and forth across the rooftop bellowing "New York, New York," from the musical On the Town. I call it bellowing because I dare not call it singing.

Anyone who wishes more con reportage right now can click on the link above, but you'll have to forgive me for the lack of captioning ... I blame the fact that body time, it is now past 2:00 a.m. Friday. If it's coherency you want, you'd better check back tomorrow.

1970 Comic Art Convention Progress Report

2008-07-24T00:51:57Z

For those of you still looking ahead to the 1970 New York Comic Art Convention rather than the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con International, here's a sample spread from that earlier con's 8-page progress report to help you with your travel plans.

Better make that ... time-travel plans.

(Click on the scan once, and then again, to see the image at its largest size.)

Check out the upcoming panels, as well as some of the pros who attended the 1969 incarnation of the con. That's Gil Kane and Phil Seuling in the photo at the upper right, and Frank Frazetta and Neal Adams below.

And now I really must finish packing for tomorrow morning's flight! (To San Diego, that is.)

I'm Comic-Con Bound

2008-07-23T21:42:37Z

I'll be heading off early tomorrow morning (far too early) for this year's San Diego Comic-Con International, which will run through Sunday. I've heard that there will be anywhere from 150,000 to 175,000 people in attendance, a far cry from my first few conventions, at which the membership never even hit four figures.

As far as I know, no pictures exist of me from my first convention, which was the 1970 installment of Phil Seuling's famed July 4th New York Comic Art Convention, back when I was only 15. But since I was tall even then, and always sat front-row center so as not to miss a single word at any panel, multiple shots of me at Phil's 1971 convention ended up being published.

Click here to see the one I already shared with you, which ended up getting published in the con's 1972 program book. But above right is a second image from that same weekend, possibly from the con's opening ceremonies, which was originally published in the February 1972 issue of Fantastic Fanzine Special #2, an early Gary Groth magazine. If you compare this image with that first one I shared, you'll see that I was probably in the same seat for both pictures. I doubt I got up from that chair the entire day. Once you nab the best seat in the house at a con, you don't give it up!

But that's not the only image from that period of time. Here's yet another picture of me with Phil Seuling, this one originally published in the September 1971 issue of Comic Fandom Monthly, edited by Joe Brancatelli. That's Phil in the far left, and I'm dead center. As you can see, I've still got the long hair and headband!

This photo was taken at the Nathan's Famous on Times Square sometime in 1971. The event was basically a small dealer's room tucked away in the back corner of the restaurant 's basement.

If I'm remembering correctly, this was a precursor to the Second Sundays that Phil used to run monthly at the Statler-Hilton Hotel. I wrote and published a con report on the first Second Sunday in my own fanzine, Call It Fate, and if I can ever dig out a copy, I should be able to pin down an exact date. But I seem to recall that Phil was testing the waters with this event, attempting to learn whether those Second Sundays would be economically feasible.

I remember picking up sketches and autographs at Nathan's from Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Alan Weiss, Gerry Conway, and others. I still have them all. Maybe you'll get to see them someday. (Bizarrely, I would end up working under three of those four people years later at Marvel Comics.)

Both of the photos above show me 37 years ago at the age of 16. Somehow, I don't think that any photo taken at the coming convention over the next four days will carry as much psychic weight when looked back on 37 years from now, when I'm 90.

But you never know—I could be wrong. Make sure to check back with me then!

A Living Dog

2008-07-23T00:31:09Z

While digging out the drawing by Garry Trudeau that I scanned and uploaded for yesterday's entry, I came across this caricature of me done by Joe Papin, famed courtroom sketch artist for the New York Daily News. (Click on the image to view a larger version.) And since I've mentioned in the past that I'd share other caricatures of me, in addition to the Jack Davis image which I sometimes use as my icon, it seems like the right time to post this.

I was visiting Bill Kresse at the paper's 42nd Street offices just before heading off to begin as a freshman at SUNY Buffalo in January of 1973. (That odd starting date is due to my graduating high school early, in January instead of June.) I had become friendly with Bill thanks to a school tour several years earlier.

A number of Daily News cartoonists drew me going-away cards, including George Ward, whose artwork I've already shared with you. At the time, I wanted to be a newspaper columnist in the Pete Hamill/Jimmy Breslin mode, walking the streets and writing about whatever I happened to find there.

Joe's scribbled comment at the bottom of his caricature advises me to stay strong:

Always remember: You are entering a field in which the working ethic has sadly become, "Better a living dog, than a dead lion!" With hard work, perseverance, and a great deal of luck, you can help change this! Excelsior!!

I guess I never fulfilled whatever journalistic promise Joe saw in me, but at least I got a neat portrait out of it. Sorry about that, Joe, wherever you are!

Happy Birthday, Garry Trudeau!

2008-07-22T02:41:19Z

Garry Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury, turned 60 today.

Do you think he remembers having drawn the sketch at right (click to view at a larger size) at a Reuben Awards banquet in 1973 when he was but 25 and I was just a snotty kid with a sketchbook and a pleading voice?

Nah.

I, on the other hand, remember it very well. (There should be a word for that, the encounter which one party regards as meaningful and the other finds either meaningless or completely unmemorable.)

In any case, as I type these words, it suddenly leaps out at me—he was only freakin' 25? And already helping to topple a president, with a Pulitzer only two years away? It makes me feel as if I haven't done enough to justify my existence today.

Happy birthday, Garry!

Readercon 2008: Sunday

2008-07-21T13:47:54Z

Even though Sunday was one of the shorter days at Readercon, it was actually the busiest day for my personal programing.

Once I checked out of the hotel and parked my bag, I went to my 10:00 a.m. panel, "I'm Not Terse, I'm Just Edited That Way," which in addition to me featured Barry Malzberg, Lucy Corin, Richard Chwedyk, and Ron Drummond. Kathryn Morrow acted as moderator, and I made it difficult for her to maintain order. Our mandate was to discuss the controversial relationship between writer Raymond Carver and editor Gordon Lish, the man who made his career. The panel description also tossed out the name of Robert Heinlein, who many feel became uneditable as he became more successful.

I was seated next to our moderator, and I'm afraid that when I got a chance to speak, the first panelist to do so, I began with something of a rant. I am very passionate about Carver, and so I'm afraid that it couldn't be helped.

A decade or so ago, when the New York Times published in its Sunday magazine section its shocking article revealing the true nature of the Lish/Carver relationship, my understanding of the arc of Carver's life changed completely. I'd always thought that the reason he'd eventually began publishing richer, deeper stories was because the love of a good woman had rescued him from his alcoholism. Instead, it seemed that the real reason his writing improved was because he'd finally developed the strength to throw off the shackles of his editor.

Take the stories "The Bath" and "A Small Good Thing." It was presented to the world that the latter story was a revision of the former one, that Carver had simply decided to revisit the theme and expand his story. But the latter was not a revision, but rather a de-Lishifying, a removal of the edits, a return to the warmth which had always been there but which Lish could not abide. (I could go on—believe me, I could go on—but I'll shut up here for now and point you to my earlier post on Carver, which quotes some of the Lish/Carver correspondence.

By this point, I may very well may have been frothing at the mouth, and had fight hard to suppress myself to avoid stealing all of the panel's time. I hate microphone hogs, and didn't want to find myself becoming one of them. But when it came to Carver, I couldn't control myself.

Barry Malzberg, who was the only one there to have been personally edited by Lish, was the next to speak (when I finally yielded the floor, that is), and he rose to the man's defense. Lish may not have done what was best for the writer, he said, but he did what was best for the magazine. To an editor, what was most important was the consistency of the magazine's voice, and Lish protected that. Barry shared that Lish had edited one of his submissions for Esquire, then sent it back, harshly cut and rearranged, with perhaps 30% of the story gone. Lish asked him to retype it and resubmit it, with the hopes that Lish could get the story past the powers that be. Which Barry did, only to have the story bounced anyway. Barry subsequently sold the story to F&SF (I think), and claimed that it was a better story for Lish's hand.

I contrasted Lish with Horace Gold, who also ruled with a dictatorial hand, and who nearly destroyed "Flowers for Algernon" with his insistence on a happy ending. So not all dictators are equal. All Lish was, I said, was Gold plus talent.

As for me, I'd personally rather publish a good story that says what I intended it to say than a great story that says the opposite of what I'd intended. I'd rather be hated for what I am than loved for what I am not.

The one thing I failed to say, which comes to mind now, is an old quote which I've heard attributed to Tony Bennett, which goes something like this—what they called my flaws when I was young, they call my style now that I'm older and successful. I'd hate for an editor to make a writer more palatable by removing that uniqueness.

I should add that I don't want any of the editors out there to think I'm dismissing those good editors who are helping writers achieve their visions and to say what they want to say. My problem is with those editors who change the point of their writers' stories until they say the opposite of what was originally intended.

I could go on for thousands more words about Carver ... but I won't. (And forgive me for not quoting Ron,i, and Lucy as well, for they certainly also had important things to say on the matter—but how much of this subject do I dare to inflict upon you?)

Immediately after that panel, I read my short story "A Very Private Tour of a Very Public Museum," which will be out in two months in the Summer 2008 issue of Postscripts magazine. I was pleased to see that Val Grimm (above), who had given my last Postscripts story such a stellar review, was in attendance.

I only had an hour for lunch before the panel after that, and so rushed to the bar with Fiona Kelleghan and Rob Sawyer. We were joined there by Brett Cox and Jeanne Beckwith.

At 1:00, I participated in a panel titled "Finding Hamster Huey's Head: The Nature of the Childhood Short Story," where I was joined by Shira Daemon, Sarah Beth Durst, Louise Marley, and Ann Tonsor Zeddies. I took the position that, just as C. P. Snow had said that patriotism was only the love of the food that we ate as children (if I'm misattributing that quote, please let me know—I'd already given Carson McCullers credit for a Flannery O'Connor quote on a panel this weekend), our love of literature is nothing more than the resonances of the books we loved as children.

Paul, Deb, and I dashed off immediately at the end of my panel so we could get back to Providence in time to pick up Brownie from the dog sitter. As we drove, we gave the con a postmortem, which, no, you don't get to hear about. Once back on Poplar Street, I took a brief nap, which only ended when a cat walked up the length of my body and sat on my head.

But, as they say in the commercials, that's not all!

Ever since I started flying into and out of Providence instead of Boston to get to Readercon, the three of us have had a tradition of eating a farewell dinner at Wes' Rib House as a way of extending the con even further. Often local writers and fans join in. This year, in addition to Don and Sheila D'ammassa, Dan and Sandy Pearlman, and Mike Blake, we were joined by Pete and Nikki Crowther, who had been in the area attending Necon rather than Readercon, and who were about to vacation with Paul and Deb for four days before heading home to the UK. (That's Paul, Nikki, Deb, and Pete with me above.) It was great to get some time with Pete and Nikki, two of the nicest people in the world, whom I can't see often enough.

And now that I've posted this entry (as well as my complete set of photos), Readercon really is over. See you all next July!

Readercon 2008: Saturday Afternoon and Evening

2008-07-20T11:27:35Z

After I'd recharged my batteries with a brief nap Saturday afternoon, I was ready for two of the most important pieces of programming this weekend—the consecutive hour-long Guest of Honor interviews, the first of which had Jim Kelly being interviewed by John Kessel, the second with Jonathan Lethem being interviewed by Robert Killheffer.

Both of the interviews shared a common quality, in that you got the sense that these were friends who were very much at ease with each other, but beyond that, there was a sharp difference. In the first interview, I got the sense of eavesdropping in on a conversation, while the second was more a monologue sparked by an occasional question. For example, once Bob asked his first question, it was half an hour before he got a chance to ask a second, so ornate and passionate was Jonathan's answer. There were no dull moments in either hour, and the two-hour block was very entertaining.

I guess the reason Jonathan didn't need that much prodding to get going can be attributed to something he said during one of his lengthy answers: "I was explaining this all along before there was even very much work to explain it about," followed by "I explained myself into a career." He has obviously been thinking about his relationship with the signifiers of science fiction since the beginning of his career, and so he has the complex footsteps to that dance well thought out.

I then headed off for what was, compared to Friday night's huge group, a much more intimate dinner. I headed to Bickfords with Barry and Joyce Malzberg, Paul D Filippo, and Deb Newton. While that diner offers good, solid, home-style cooking, whenever I'm there I always feel as if I am taking part in a Boca Raton early-bird special. When I walked through the packed restaurant from our table near the front to the men's room at the back, I noted only one person my age, with everyone else seeming to be my parents' and grandparents' ages. The customer base seemed so weak and frail that I worried someone would expire during our meal!

We discussed the implosion of the Scott Meredith agency, our plans for our literary estates, and other weighty topics, but we also turned to lighter fare, and for some reason in the midst of it we all began to sing "The Teddy Bears Picnic." I'm not sure what the other patrons, many of whom came with canes, oxygen tanks and walkers, made of that!

Back at the hotel, I watched two one-act plays which had been written by Jim Kelly and directed by Jeanne Beckwith. The first play, titled "The Propagation of Light in a Vacuum," starred professional actors whom Jeanne had driven down with her from Vermont, while the second, "Unique Visitors," starred our own John Kessel, with off-stage voices supplied by the likes of Andy Duncan, Jim Morrow, and several others whose faces I couldn't make out in the dark. John, who has appeared in the film The Delicate Art of the Rifle, acquitted himself well, and his impassioned rantings from the stage brought much laughter and applause.

By then, it was time to print my boarding pass for Sunday night's flight home, and of course engage in more schmoozing. I know that I should have attended the 22nd Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition, which I usually do, and which some chastised me for skipping, but this year I felt as if I shouldn't. As I explained to various friends to justify my absence, it felt like too somber a year to spend sitting and watching a game show and laughing for two hours, disengaged from the give and take of human interaction, when I could instead spend that time in intense conversation with friends and acquaintances, some of whom, as we learned this year, might not be around next year. That one-on-one time felt too precious. I felt a need to grasp on to those friends a little longer, and so, my apologies to the competitors, who had one less set of hands to applaud them. Maybe next year I will once more be in a frivolous mood.

On a lighter note, here I am fooling around with Matthew Jarpe, Michael Swanwick and Marianne Porter. I have no memory of exactly what we did to drive Michael to his knees, but I vaguely recall that it had something to do with the lengths to which a writer had to go to promote his work. It had something to do with always being a ham when cameras were present, which, I assure you, isn't a hard thing for me.

I got to bed a little after 1:00, hoping for a good night's sleep in preparation for my reading and two panels Sunday, but it seems that five hours is all my body was willing to accept. I guess Readercon is so rich and exciting that my subconscious is insisting I drain every moment from it, and it won't allow me to crash until on the plane home. (Only metaphorically, I hope.)

Readercon 2008: Saturday Morning and Early Afternoon

2008-07-20T05:04:37Z

I woke up in time to catch Liz Hand's 10:00 a.m. reading Saturday. Achieving vertical locomotion that early on a con morning isn't always guaranteed for me, considering how late into the evenings I often schmooze, but I made an extra effort on account of Liz. She read an excerpt from Wonderwall, her upcoming YA novel about Rimbaud.

For some reason, usually a scheduling conflict, I'd never seen Liz read before, and so her performance was a revelation. She did more then merely tell her tale; she became her characters—a female teen runaway in modern times, the 19th Century teen runaway Arthur Rimbaud, a homeless burned-out rocker, and others.

Midway through the reading, one squirming child raised his hand, and when Liz acknowledged him, he looked at the manuscript in her hands and asked her, "Are you trying to make a joke or something? There are too many pages to read!" Which I think would make a wonderful back cover blurb. Liz continued on with her reading unfazed.

After Liz's reading, I had intended to attend readings by Brett Cox and then Jim Morrow, but then I realized that if I went through with those plans I'd have ended up with no meal break. (Sorry, guys!) So I bailed on them both. Instead, I went to lunch with Liz, John Clute, Paul Park, John Crowley, and Nat and Karen Herold. We discussed our world travels, compared notes about our backgrounds in the advertising game, and oohed and aahed over the stereopticon and 3-D photos of Egypt which someone had just given Crowley.

After lunch, I went to John Kessel's reading. He shared a story which Gordon Van Gelder had told John just the night before had been purchased for a future issue of F&SF. However captivating the tale was, though, I was starting to feel exhausted. I realized that the 5 1/2 hours of sleep I'd gotten the previous night and the 4 1/2 hours I'd gotten the night before that would not be enough to keep me going the rest of the day. So after John's reading, I ran off for a 45-minute nap to avoid embarrassing myself later by nodding off during the Guest of Honor interviews.

But before I could get to my room, additional schmoozing had to occur first, of course, as with Jack Slay and Paul Di Filippo (above), and others whose photos you'll find here.

There'll be more reportage soon ... but only after more sleep.

Readercon 2008: Friday Afternoon and Evening

2008-07-19T13:06:49Z

14theditch and I headed off for a late lunch after the reading I mentioned in my previous post, and along the way we bumped into ellen_datlow, who joined us for drinks and conversation. We spent an hour or so catching up on the stuff of life.

The geography of the hotel restaurant proved that it's impossible to navigate a convention without bouncing off your friends. For example, when we were seated, Jim Kelly and John Kessel were at the next table, so we of course had to kibitz with them for awhile, but by the time we were done eating, Mark Budz and Marina Fitch had taken their place at that table, setting off more kibitzing. And then, as we were leaving, I noticed that Richard and Carol Parks were behind us (you can see them in the background in the photo above), and so I paused to chat there. And then I saw the Locus gang at a large table plotting to take over the world, so I of course had to stop there as well.

I almost didn't make it out of the restaurant!

Once lunch was over, I headed to take part in what I feared would be an unwieldy panel. It was titled "Writers' Groups and Writers: A Match Made in Heaven or Hell?" The program description listed 13 participants—Alaya Dawn Johnson and Matthew Kressel (the co-leaders), with Richard Chwedyk, F. Brett Cox, Michael J. Daley, Andrea Hairston, Kay Kenyon, Barbara Krasnoff, Resa Nelson, Jennifer Pelland, Luc Reid, Paul Tremblay, and me—and it sounded more like a page from a phone book than a workable group for a panel. I expected fights for the microphone as we each tried to share our writing-group tips and horror stories, and feared that we'd all leave feeling grumpy and stifled. But the moderators managed to keep us well-behaved. I don't think any of us stepped on each other's toes, and each of us seemed to leave surprised and happy with the way it went. The audience even managed to get in on the act. I was amazed that such a group of egomaniacs as we could all play so well with others, and kudos must go to the moderators.

The next program item I attended was "Describing the Elephant in the Room: A Conversation About Genre and Career," a fascinating chat between Jonathan Lethem and Gordon Van Gelder. They were so entertaining that I actually took notes:

Lethem (quoting Normal Mailer): "Don't understand me too quickly."

Lethem: "I tend to write against the fantastic. ... Fantasy is insufficient to a human being's inner peace. ... [He] writes against its viability in human affairs."

Van Gelder (quoting Michael Swanwick): "Whose car you come to the convention in determines which movement you're a part of."

Lethem: "It's terribly problematic to wish for justice in the arts."

It was a very lively hour, and the two of them could easily have gone on for at least another hour if allowed.

I next attended the panel titled "If All Men Were Tolerant, How Would You Shock Your Sister?," which played off the title of the famous Ted Sturgeon story, "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?" The participants were Barry Malzberg, Cecilia Tan, Rose Fox, Paolo Bacigalupi, Paul Di Filippo, and James Morrow. There was a lot of discussion over the recent brouhaha concerning the Obama-themed New Yorker cover, and a number of people quoted Philip Roth, who famously said in the '60s that the world had become so bizarre that it was impossible to shock people anymore.

After the panel, I headed off to what was meant to be a small, intimate dinner with a few friends, but it became a group that grew moment by moment, and ended up including Barry and Joyce Malzberg, Paul Di Filippo, Deb Newton, Brett Cox, Michael and Margie Kandel, Jim and Kathryn Morrow, and Charlie Obendorf. We went to the Macaroni Grill, and amazingly, the staff was able to seat such a large party immediately on a Friday night at the dinner hour.

Back at the con, I did not attend the screening of the Disch poetry reading which I had earlier urged you all to witness, but my complex thoughts on that subject deserve an entry of their own. Instead, I hung around outside the room in which the Meet the Pros(e) party was soon to begin. I had a nice discussion with ktempest (below), whom I wish you all would stop bashing! I have never found her anything but pleasant and temperate, which is more than I can say about some of her naysayers. I guess passion has its price. Once I survive the con and my current deadlines, I'll weigh in on one of her recent controversies.

Before the party began, Barry Malzberg presented the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award to the great writer Stanley G. Weinbaum. I'm not entirely sure that I believe he's forgotten enough to be rediscovered, but I keep having to tell myself something I had to tell myself back when I was a juror for that award—that just because I haven't forgotten him, doesn't mean that he's not forgotten by 99% of the reading public. To honor him, go read or re-read (as the case may be) "A Martian Odyssey," one of the most important SF stories of all time.

I partied for about an hour after that—saw Eric Solstein again after far too long, chatted with newlyweds Robert and Gwen Killheffer (so fresh from the altar that they still had that new car smell), talked to jamietr about his first Readercon, and spoke briefly to dozens of other friends—but gave up near midnight, since I actually wanted to be awake to attend lizhand's reading at 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning.

Readercon 2008: Friday Morning

2008-07-19T09:55:00Z

Friday started off slow. I spent the morning working in my room, and so didn't get out to attend any official programming until Patrick O'Leary's 11:30 a.m. reading. Patrick always give good reading. At the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs last year, he read a piece which will appear in Pete Crowther's upcoming anthology I Think Therefore I Am, and if Patrick's moving story is any indication, it will be a great book. This time, he read a story titled "The Little Guy," which inexplicably has yet to find a market. The sad, funny tale tells the true story of why the Decider-in-Chief's IQ seems to have fallen year after year after year, and stars Dick Cheney and an alien who speaks with an Irish brogue. He also read a few poems, including one about the woman he was destined to marry, which luckily for him turns out to be the same woman as the woman he is about to marry.

Immediately after that reading, I headed off for my noon kaffeeklatsch. I shared a table with Mary Robinette Kowal, someone whom over the years I'd managed never to meet before. (See, Karen, I don't know everyone.) Over the course of an hour together, we talked (along with others who came to listen, urge on, and cajole) of the first female archaeologist, of her puppeteering background, and many other topics. And though Mary did not demonstrate those puppetry skills for us, she did perform the magic trick she learned during her brief career as a singing waitress fairy in a Christmas show aboard a cruise ship. That's a picture of us below, snapped before our event began and I learned how interesting she was.

As soon as the kaffeeklatsch was over, I rushed to a reading given by Jeffrey Ford, one of my favorite writers, and luckily one of my favorite readers as well. He orates with a booming voice and a wry tone, and he's always entertaining. In his half-hour slot, he read his surreal story "The Dream of Reason," which will be forthcoming in an Ellen Datlow anthology the name of which he couldn't recall. I'm glad he's so popular that the titles of his outlets blur together.

I'll relate more of yesterday's busy doings a little later, as soon as I've gotten a little more work done, but to keep you busy in the meantime, here are further photos from the con.

Readercon 2008: Thursday

2008-07-18T12:43:29Z

There, that's better. Four-and-a-half hours of sleep can work wonders!

Yesterday began with me waking up at 4:15 and getting to BWI Airport three hours before my 10:05 flight. I had a ton of work to do on the upcoming Fall Preview issue of SCI FI magazine, and doing it at the airport instead of at home that morning meant that I missed all the nasty Baltimore traffic which would have slowed me down had I tried to get there in the midst of rush hour. So I had a calm commute and then many productive hours of wifi work before my flight.

Once all (well, almost all) caught up, I flew to Providence, rather than Boston, to take part in what's been a longtime Readercon tradition—since Providence and Boston are equidistant from the con's site of Burlington, Massachusetts, I extend the con conviviality by having lunch in the land of H. P. Lovecraft with Paul Di Filippo (and sometimes his keeper, Deb Newton) before driving to the con with them from there.

Here we are about to devour lunch at their favorite Chinese restaurant.

My fortune cookie told me that You always know the right times to be assertive or to simply wait, which bodes well for not making a fool of myself this weekend—or at least for not making more of a fool of myself that I usually appear to be.

After lunch, we picked up Deb at her office, and headed straight to the con. The trip took around an hour, and we arrived in the early afternoon. I went to my room to catch up on further work before programming began, and once I satisfied myself that the world would not crumble, headed down to the bar around 4:30, where I joined a long table made up of Paul, Deb, Farah Mendelson, John Clute, Liz Hand, Geoff Ryman, Claude Lalumiere, and Jacob Weisman.

We began the annual ritual of catching up, and for some reason eventually started sharing the teasing names with which we each were attacked in childhood. My own, in order of my having earned them, were Gigantor, Milton the Monster, Shakespeare, and Hollywood. I won't explain the reasoning behind them here (though I might do that at some time in the future), and I won't share here the names the others had earned. Some information is best left buried. Or if offered up at all, it should be by their owners alone.

When the group departed for their mass dinner in the hotel restaurant, I moved to the lobby (because I had made other plans), where I was absorbed by another motley crew, this one made up of johnjosephadams, david_l_edelman, Christopher Cevasco, and Doug Cohen. We discussed David's chances of winning this year's John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, John's upcoming vampire and dystopic SF anthologies, the artwork Chris chose for Paradox magazine, and more.

When Resa Nelson arrived so that she and I could go to dinner, I introduced her to the group and was delighted to discover that this meant I was the one to give her faces for some people whom up until then she only knew as names—Doug, who works with her in her role as the Film Editor of Realms of Fantasy, and Chris, who had published one of her stories in Paradox. The world grows ever smaller, and I'm glad to have a part in it.

Resa and I then headed off to the Lemon Tree restaurant, a very nice Thai place we've gone to many times before. Resa's first novel, The Dragonslayer's Sword, based on a short story I published 15 years ago in Science Fiction Age, is now out, and she autographed the first copy for me.

After dinner, I went to two readings. At 8:30 p.m., I listened to Andy Duncan read a portion of his story "The Night Cache," and then at 9:00 p.m. I heard Guest of Honor Jonathan Lethem read from his novel in progress, Those Birds and That Tower (though he warns that his title will probably not survive by the time the book hits print in Fall of '09). Since neither work is yet published, or even complete, their performances were big teases, because I can't rush out to read either, and I want both right now.

At 10:00, I attended a screening of the documentary The Polymath, or The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. I will go to any lengths to hear Chip's voice, and this documentary definitely delivered. Since I've read almost every word he's ever written (well, ever published), I was aware of much of the information imparted last night. But I will say that though I knew he was a prolific writer, I was unaware of the full extent of his prolificity in another field, one in which it seems he shares a record with Wilt Chamberlain.

Before the film began, I heard someone ask whether whether she could still enjoy what she was about to see not having read any Delany, and I turned and got into a discussion with the two women sitting behind me, Julie Andrews and Desirina Boskovich, graduates of the 2007 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Workshop. I assured them that Chip was a fascinating speaker regardless of whether one knew his work. We chatted briefly before the film began, and I meant to find out what they thought once it was all over, but I was sitting next to Bob Colby, and we immediately got into a discussion about Chip's infamous experimental film The Orchid, which he remembers being booed at Noreascon I, the first Boston Worldcon, and I remembered having been shocked by at the film show of (I believe) the 1971 Lunacon. (What 16-year-old wants to see his favorite comic-book artists naked? Well ... perhaps I should rephrase that. This 16-year-old didn't want to see his favorite comic-book artists naked!) By the time I turned around, Julie and Desirina were gone. But before the con is over, I aim to find out what they thought!

Afterward, in the lobby, I sat with david_l_edelman, Andy Duncan, Ted Chiang, Marty Halpern, Michael Cisco, Laird Barron, and a couple of other people whose names I did not catch. Much of our conversation was spent in remembering the recently deceased tomsdisch, but there was also talk of other Clarion instructors, such as Carol Emshwiller and Algis Budrys. Soon, however (for me, at least), exhaustion took over, and I headed back to my room, where I tossed up some photos and made this morning's brief, barely coherent entry.

I hope I sound more coherent this morning. If not, be very afraid, because I think this is about as coherent as I ever get.

Readercon 2008: And So It Begins

2008-07-18T06:07:02Z

It is far too late in the evening (or is that far too early in the morning?) for me to have anything coherent to say about Readercon 2008, other than that I'm having fun as usual, and that my photos are beginning to appear online as if by magic.

But before I crash, here I am with johnjosephadams, perspicacious editor of The Living End, who wisely chose to reprint my Stoker finalist "Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man" in his upcoming zombie anthology.

A report on Thursday's doings will be posted tomorrow when (and if) coherency returns.

Paul Theroux on Pornography—and Martians

2008-07-16T10:32:17Z

Louisa Eremelino interviewed Paul Theroux, author of the classic travel memoir The Great Railway Bazaar as well as other books, both fiction and non-fiction, in the June 30 issue of Publishers Weekly.

She closed out the profile with his anecdote of wandering a porn shop in the Akihabara district of Tokyo with Japanese writer and translator Haruki Murakami:

I think that you see what a society is like, its personality, its character, by looking at its pornography. It's different in every culture. The way a man treats a prostitute is the way he really is; he's not on his best behavior. If a Martian arrived on earth and had an hour to sum up this society, I'd send him to a porno shop.

And then maybe to a restaurant.

Waiting for Nancy

2008-07-16T02:34:00Z

Editor and Publisher reported today on the bizarre correspondence which supposedly took place in 1952 and 1953 between Samuel Beckett, the existentialist author of Waiting for Godot, and Ernie Bushmiller, the cartoonist responsible for the newspaper strip Nancy.

This sounds much too weird to be true, but then again, stranger things have happened. After all, J.D. Salinger was supposedly a big fan of Gilligan's Island. And this was Beckett, so you never know.

One letter from Bushmiller, provided by trusted comics historian R.C. Harvey, is quoted as rejecting Beckett's ideas as follows:

Your gag and strip ideas for Nancy are much appreciated, and I have to say interesting, too. Many readers send me ideas for the strip, but I don't think I've ever seen any quite like yours. ...

I don't know how well they're going to work. I think the problem you're having, Sam, is the same problem any literary man might have. You're not setting up the gags visually and you're rushing to the snapper. It seems to me you've got the zingers right there at the beginning, in panel No. 1, and although I have to admit you got Nancy and Sluggo in some crackerjack predicaments, I don't see how they got there.

For instance, putting Nancy and Sluggo in the garbage cans is a good gag, but in my opinion, you can't have them in there for all three panels. How did they get there? Same thing when you had them buried in the sand. I like to do beach gags, but I don't think that having Nancy buried up to her waist in the first two panels and then up to her neck in the third one is adequately explained, and I've been at this game for a while now. Also, why would Sluggo be facing in the opposite direction when he's talking to her?

The more I reread the news story, the more I thought—this has got to be a joke! It was just something written in jest that someone else made the mistake of taking seriously, like all those times respected newspapers pick up Onion stories and run with them as gospel, right?

I guess what it comes down to is that I'd rather be judged cynical for discounting it if it turns out to be true than gullible for believing it if it turns out to be false.

I suppose I could contact R.C. Harvey to ask him directly, but—where would be the fun in that?

A Friend Amidst the Foliage

2008-07-15T02:58:12Z

An old friend was spotted wandering the garden outside our kitchen this morning in the shade of the hollyhocks and delphiniums. [Click on the image for a larger view.]

This wasn't the same box turtle I wrote about back on June 21 (it's too small, only about six inches long), but it might have been the same one I mentioned on June 12.

Whatever the case, I'm glad to see to see that turtles feel so at home in our neighborhood.

Tom Toles, Superhero

2008-07-14T13:10:29Z

Tom Toles, the editorial cartoonist for the Washington Post, finally returned from his vacation today. But for those of you who've been missing him these past weeks, that single dose might not be enough to assuage your withdrawal symptoms. So to help out, I thought I'd share this image from long ago and far away.

Back in 1973, as a freshman at the State University of New Your at Buffalo, I worked on the student newspaper. That was when what I wanted to be when I grew up was a journalist of the Pete Hamill or Jimmy Breslin mold, handing in three opinionated slice-of-life columns each week. (I never had to desire to be a writer of fiction when I grew up because I always was a writer of fiction; it wasn't anything I ever thought I had to become.) Tom Toles was also on the staff of the paper, the resident genius. And even though he was brilliant, he was also a nice, sweet guy with no ego. How often do you see that? So he was loved by all, and everybody wanted to get him to illustrate their stories.

I got lucky once. I crossed the border into Canada to attend Cosmic-Con, a Toronto comic-book convention, and convinced my editor at the paper to let me do a feature on the event. (That boss? Howard Kurtz, whose name you may recognize now that he's a political talking head and the host of CNN's Reliable Sources.) Tom drew this piece to go with the article. [Click on the image to view at a larger size.]

So for one brief (very brief), shining moment, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Tom Toles was also a superhero artist.

800 Million People Can't Be Wrong

2008-07-13T13:05:33Z

I dreamt this morning that I was sitting with friends in a stadium so huge that when I looked across the way I noted the rows on the other side descending so far down that I could not see the bottom and rising so high into the sky that they vanished into a mist. An announcer's voice buzzed inside my head to tell me that attendance today exceeded 800 million people, which my mind accepted as a possible number in whatever world this dream was set. The voice promised us all a great show that day, and warned that if we wanted to pick up refreshments or go to the bathroom, we'd better do it right then, because the event was starting soon and we wouldn't want to miss any of the action.

I stepped into the hallway behind me, not pausing to think what a crowd of 800 million people getting popcorns and sodas would be like. Only once I'd entered it, the hallway wasn't that of a stadium, but rather that of a hospital. And I was suddenly dressed all in white, like an orderly. I had a picture ID clipped to my shirt, and when I flipped it up to peer at it saw that it was indeed my picture. I accepted the scene change, but also kept hunting for the refreshment stand and the restroom. Wouldn't want to miss the show!

I wandered endless hallways and eventually came to a break room of some kind in which patients were seated at tables, some playing dominos, others watching the small TV that hung from the ceiling. And who should be sitting at one table but writer Gregory Feeley, performing the role of a patient advocate. He was telling an old man about his complicated insurance options. As I passed their table, Greg looked at me curiously, wondering how I had gotten there, but did not pause in his explanation to ask. We acknowledged each other with nods only, and as I moved back out into the hallway, I could hear him continuing on with his advice, the patter of his very competent spiel unbroken.

I woke while still wandering the halls, without ever finding that refreshment stand, and without ever learning what event could be so popular as to draw 800 million people to one location.

The One Readercon Event You Should Not Miss

2008-07-12T18:46:15Z

I just noticed that the following event is scheduled to take place on Friday at 9:00 p.m.

For me, this will take priority over everything else scheduled that weekend.

Bring your kleenex.

Tom Disch's "Winter Journey"
(40 min.)
Almost exactly a year after the death of his longtime partner Charles Naylor in September 2004, Tom Disch began writing a sequence of poems, which he shared on his blog. Eventually there were 31 of them. He titled the sequence "Winter Journey" after Schubert's lieder cycle "Winterreise" (a work Naylor loved). Elizabeth Hand calls the sequence "an extraordinary efflorescence of grief ... tragic, bitter, bleakly funny, romantic, heart-rending—and also accessible. I can imagine, by some divine fluke, the book becoming a surprise, posthumous bestseller—an irony Disch would have appreciated." When the sequence was completed, Disch contacted friend and filmmaker Eric Solstein, and asked if a reading of the work might be videotaped to serve as a suicide note. At its conclusion, he said, he would kill himself, the attendant publicity hopefully contributing to the success of the recording. A deal was struck between Tom and Eric—the taping would proceed if the suicide were postponed for some indefinite period of time. This will be the first public showing of "Winter Journey." The poems are to be published later this year, by Payseur and Schmidt, with a DVD of the reading included.

My Readercon Schedule

2008-07-12T17:47:35Z

The Readercon committee has just posted the final program for the 19th iteration of what always turns out to be my favorite convention of the year. (I haven't missed one yet.) I expect the sharply focused panel descriptions to spark lively discussions as usual.

You can find my photographs from last year here, and I look forward to seeing you there this year!

Here's where you'll be able to find me:

Friday, July 18 at 3:00 p.m.
Writers' Groups and Writers: A Match Made in Heaven or Hell?
Alaya Dawn Johnson and Matthew Kressel (co-leaders) with Richard Chwedyk, F. Brett Cox, Michael J. Daley, Scott Edelman, Andrea Hairston, Kay Kenyon, Barbara Krasnoff, Resa Nelson, Jennifer Pelland, Luc Reid, Paul Tremblay, et al.
Writers groups: some writers swear by them, others swear at them. Many writers consider critiques from their writers' group an invaluable part of the submission process. Others believe that writers' groups tend to dilute individual style, tending toward "groupthink." Our leaders are members of Altered Fluid, a Manhattan-based writer's group that has met regularly since 2001.

Saturday, July 19 at 1:00 p.m.
Kaffeeklatsche
Scott Edelman; Matthew Kressel

Sunday July 20 at 10:00 a.m.
I'm Not Terse, I'm Just Edited That Way
Richard Chwedyk, Lucy Corin, Ron Drummond, Scott Edelman, Barry N. Malzberg, Kathryn Morrow (M)
We now know that Raymond Carver's famously minimalist style was essentially the invention of his editor Gordon Lish, and plans are underway to publish the much longer original versions of his stories, which Carver in some ways preferred. Of course, the sf world has already seen this happen with the novels of Robert A. Heinlein. Competing versions challenge our assumptions about the identity of authorship (or at least authorial style) and the nature and integrity of texts. But the upheaval may be even bigger than that. It's easy to imagine a day when every reader could use their e-book software to create their own half-terse, half-discursive version of each of Heinlein's novels and Carver's short stories. Well, there goes the commonality of the reading experience, too! What's a writer and reader to do?

Sunday, July 20 at 11:00 a.m.
Reading
Scott Edelman reads his story "A Very Private Tour of a Very Public Museum" from the upcoming summer issue of Postscripts.

Sunday, July 20 at 1:00 p.m.
Finding Hamster Huey's Head: The Nature of the Childhood Favorite Story
Shira Daemon (L), Sarah Beth Durst, Scott Edelman, Louise Marley, Ann Tonsor Zeddies
Children very often like to hear the same story over and over again, often even insisting on a verbatim rendition (a phenomenon documented wonderfully by Bill Watterson in "Calvin and Hobbes"). Why? Is it simply a comfort mechanism, or do they get more from each hearing? Is this phenomenon related to listening to the same piece of music again and again? What relationship does it have to re-reading favorite stories as an adult?

The Envelope Art of Paul Di Filippo—Part V

2008-07-11T12:58:43Z

The ever-entertaining Paul Di Filippo has begun a new blog, which seems like the perfect time to share another of the artful collages his uses to befuddle the U.S. Postal Service. In the image at right, a band of thugs comes calling, which is exactly how my mail is usually delivered. (To see them and their words more clearly, click on the image, while to see earlier examples of Paul's madness, click on the tag below.)

As for that new blog of his, it's called Weird Universe, which, according to its mandate, "explores every aspect of a human and natural cosmos that is not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine." Paul's co-conspirators in this new project are Chuck Shephard, who many of you already know as the brains behind News of the Weird, and Alex Boese, the curator of The Museum of Hoaxes.

If you head over there today, you'll read about two-headed snakes, learn about the impending shortage of pink flamingo lawn ornaments, and sing along to an anti-LSD anthem.

Disch on Death, Art, Genius, and More

2008-07-10T15:04:12Z

In the mid-'80s, I collected science fiction, fantasy and horror quotes with the thought that I'd eventually assemble them into our field's version of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Though I pitched that book to several publishers back then, I never succeeded in placing it, and abandoned the idea. (Besides, now that Gary Westfahl has published his wonderful Science Fiction Quotations: From the Inner Mind to the Outer Limits, there's no need for my book anyway.)

As part of my mourning for Tom Disch, I paged through those old quotes to find the ones I'd culled from the works of his I'd read up until that time. Since you might be mourning, too, I thought I'd share some of them, so that we can collectively remember what we've lost.

I'd filed these first quotes under the category of Death:

Death, it must be allowed, is a natural metaphor for the act of love; it represents the loss of one's ultimate cherry.
—"Getting into Death"

It cannot be that the earth is man's only abiding place! It cannot be that our life is a mere bubble cast up by eternity to float a moment on its waves and then sink back into nothingness! Else why is it that the glorious aspirations which leap like angels from the temple of our heart are forever wandering unsatisfied? Why should the radiant brightness of human beauty be so swiftly taken from us leaving the thousand streams of our affections to flow back in alpine torrents upon our hearts? There must be a realm, somewhere, where the rainbow never fades!
—"Feather from the Wings of an Angel"

Death (she believed) like sex, requires circumspection: a fond unspoken understanding, a few unavoidable tears, and then a stoic and polite silence.
—"Getting into Death"

"Maybe if I'd written poetry all along, instead of murder mysteries, I might be able to face my own death now with some dignity. I'm jaded. I've filled myself with cheap candy, and now that it's dinnertime I have no appetite."
—"Getting into Death"

Against the glory of dying young, any living thirty-year-old must appear as drab as the fashions of five years ago.
—"Getting into Death"

She had arrived at what she thought would have to be her last word on the subject of death, and it was as astonishing in its way as the detective's announcement, in the last chapter of the book, that none of the suspects were guilty.
It was just this: Death is a social experience; an exchange; not a relationship in itself, but the medium in which relationships may exist; not as friends or a lover, but the room in which all friends and lovers meet.
—"Getting into Death"

What graveyards are for people—horrible, creepy places that any reasonable individual tries to stay away from—the City Dump is for appliances and machines of every description.
—"The Brave Little Toaster"

This one was particularly poignant—

I thought by killing myself I'd just slip away unnoticed, as I might have left a party without saying goodbye to my hosts.
—The Businessman

—because there's no way that Tom could, or should, slip away unnoticed.

The following quotes were culled from other categories, such Art, Gods, and Justice, and further demonstrate Tom's poetry and wit, which will be missed:

No one sees his own culture declining till around the age of forty, and then everyone does.
—"Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire"

I don't care if I wet my bed, but I don't want my brains to go soft.
—334

Immortality, after all, is just a frame of mind.
—"The Pressure of Time"

Every lout learns at some point in his life to make his silences seem weighty with unspoken meaning.
—"Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire"

Art is the way we delay our departure, but it is no way to start the day.
—The Puppies of Terra

The artist, when he makes his art, shares a common fate with Rousseauistic man; he begins free and ends in chains.
—"The Master of the Milford Altarpiece"

Always we wake to our metamorphosed condition, to the awareness that the strange body in the bed is our own. Women awake and discover, after centuries of dreaming, that they are men. Worms awaken into birds and music bursts from their astonished throats. An elderly businessman awakes and knows himself to be a plane tree: His leaves reach for the light and swell with growth. Often the amazement is too much to bear, and our awakening is brief. We slip back into being the rudimentary creatures that we were. We become less, and sleep resumes its old sovereignty, until once more, without warning, we awaken.
—"The Grown-Up"

Humility is a lesson that it is difficult for the young to learn.
—"Assassin & Son"

Had I been free in my childhood, I would almost certainly have been wretched.
—The Puppies of Terra

Eleven-year-olds are jailbirds one and all. They don't have freedom of speech or freedom of religion. All they've got is the distant hope of parole.
—The Businessman

It seemed monstrous that he, who was such a success ingratiating himself with the mothers of his friends, should not have a mother of his own.
—On Wings of Song

People who can't diet four days running shouldn't attempt hunger strikes.
—Camp Concentration

I discovered long ago that one needn't actually drink in order to have the satisfaction of behaving outrageously.
—"The Man Who Had No Idea"

She regarded college in much the same way her father looked on the afterlife—a place she knew of by hearsay, but dud not intend to go.
—The Businessman

A dog won't learn arithmetic, no matter who his teacher is.
—On Wings of Song

School is a prison for the every good reason that all children are criminals.
—On Wings of Song

Only the elevator that takes you down to Hell can take you up again.
—"Josie and the Elevator"

Thirty is a bad birthday when you've got nothing to show for it. By then the old excuses are wearing pretty thin. A failure at thirty is likely to be a failure the rest of his life, and he knows it. But the worst of it isn't the embarrassment, which may even do some good in small dosages; the worst of it is the way it works its way into the cells of your body, like asbestos. You live in the constant stink of your own fear, waiting for the next major catastrophe: pyorrhea, an eviction notice, whatever. It's as though you've been bound, face to face, to some maggoty corpse as an object lesson in mortality.
—On Wings of Song

I'm always pleased to meet people fatter than myself.
—Camp Concentration

Democracy can be carried too far.
—"Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire"

Friends never come to stand beside a gallows.
—The Puppies of Terra

Though we may envy the success of our friends, we also require it. What kind of success would we be if our friends were failures?
—"The Master of the Milford Altarpiece"

Genius, like the clap, is a social disease.
—Camp Concentration

Heavy losers like to look like big spenders.
—The Businessman

Ghosts only appear to people wired to receive them.
—The Businessman

The gods, after all, are only human, and once their rage has been placated they are perfectly capable of actions of mercy and grace.
—"The Vengeance of Hera"

What a convenience, after all, to pity our enemies. It spares us the larger effort of hate.
—Camp Concentration

Cemeteries aren't supposed to be as pretty as all that. Who would bother going to heaven?
—"Let Us Quickly Hasten to the Gate of Ivory"

There are books in paradise ... but no magazines.
—The Businessman

Hell is a tape loop that keeps playing the same stupid tune over and over and over forever and ever and ever.
—The Businessman

Hell, you see, is full of non-returnable bottles, which people throw from the windows of their apartments just for the satisfaction of hearing them smash.
—"Josie and the Elevator"

Hell, you see, is exactly like the world we all live in, the only difference being that everyone you meet there is completely inconsiderate and rude.
—"Josie and the Elevator"

People in hospitals live lives that are at once more dramatic and duller than, as a general rule, the lives of people elsewhere.
—"Quincunx"

It is a rule, which all appliances must obey, that whenever human beings are observing them they must remain perfectly still.
—"The Brave Little Toaster"

The Second Law of Developmental Mechanics is as follows: "If you want something you've got to take it. If you want it badly enough you will."
—On Wings of Song

Innocence, like justice, is an absolute; it may be approached but never attained.
—"The Asian Shore"

I don't believe in boredom. It's a euphemism for laziness. People do nothing, and then complain they're bored.
—On Wings of Song

Flowers, as botanists well know, can only speak in verse. Daisies, being among the simplest flowers, characteristically employ a rough sort of octosyllabic doggerel, but more evolved species, especially those in the tropics, can produce sestinas, rondeaux, and villanelles of the highest order.
—"The Brave Little Toaster"

One forgets, during one's own romances, that it is a curse to fall in love.
—"The Joyce Shrager Story"

She knew, before he'd even entered, that she would fall in love with him—or with someone—just as starlings know, with annual infallibility, that they must begin to collect the straws that will become, with a bit of poking and prodding, their cozy little nests.
—"An Italian Lesson"

A love affair isn't some goddamn work of art
—334

You mustn't hold what I write against me. Poets can't be held responsible for what they say in their poems. We're all compulsive traitors, you know ... Treason is a necessary part of the job, the way that handling trashcans is a part of being a garbage man. Some poets go to a great deal of trouble to disguise their treacheries; my inclination is to be up-front and betray everyone right from the start.
—"The Man Who Had No Idea"

Once they put you in prison, you're never entirely out of it again. It enters you and builds its walls within your heart.
—On Wings of Song

There are no atheists in casinos.
—The Businessman

Jobs are like going to church; it's nice once or twice a year to sing along and eat something and all that, but unless you really believe there's something holy going on, it gets to be a drag going in every single week.
—"Emancipation"

The damned are forever blaming other people for the situation they are in.
—The Businessman

She was of the widely held opinion that at the bottom everyone believed what she believed, if only they'd be honest with themselves.
—The Businessman

The pornography of violence is seldom more pornographic than in those works of fiction in which nuclear holocaust is used as a background for a boy's adventure story, or, worse, as a pretext for fantasies of jingoistic, revanchist slaughter.
—Twilight Zone book review column

A battle that isn't against all odds would hardly be a battle at all.
—The Puppies of Terra

Wars aren't really very interesting, I think, unless you're a participant.
—"The Apartment Next to the War"

If you have your own favorite Disch quotes, please feel free to share them here.

Umberto Eco on the Death of Reading

2008-07-09T13:21:14Z

Umberto Eco, scholar of medieval studies and bestselling author of such books as The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, was interviewed in the Summer 2008 issue of The Paris Review. (My wife gave me a lifetime subscription more than three decades ago, and it's truly been the gift that's kept on giving—something that George Plimpton wasn't too happy about!)

He had fascinating things to say about memory, the creative process, communication, and more, but it was his thoughts on the future of reading which stood out for me the most.

As you'll see, he's full of hope for the future, even as others are running around in fear.

What do you make of those who proclaim the death of the novel, the death of books, the death of reading?

To believe in the end of something is a typical cultural posture. Since the Greeks and the Latins we have persisted in believing that our ancestors were better than us. I am always amused and interested by this kind of sport, which the mass media practice with increasing ferocity. Every season there is an article on the end of the novel, the end of literature, the end of literacy in America. People don't read any longer! Teenagers only play video games! The fact of the matter is that all over the world there are thousands of stores full of books and full of young people. Never in the history of mankind have there been so many books, so many places selling books, so many young people visiting these places and buying books.

What would you say to the fearmongers?

Culture is continuously adapting to new situations. There will probably be different culture, but there will be a culture. After the fall of the Roman Empire, there were centuries of profound transformation—linguistic, political, religious, cultural. These types of changes happen ten times as quickly now. But thrilling new forms will continue to emerge and literature will survive.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who feels that though the bottles into which we decant words may change, the wine of literature will always remain.

Dreaming of Disch

2008-07-08T13:22:33Z

Tom Disch visited me in my sleep this morning. There was no sense of surprise in the dream, by which I mean there was no awareness that in real life he was dead, and that such an encounter would from now on be impossible.

We were sitting at a picnic table, much as we were during my moving one-on-one conference back at Clarion in 1979, which I shared about earlier here. We were in the backyard, not of my current house, but of the one I lived in from 1989 through 2004.

We were having a pleasant conversation, about which I'm sorry to say I remember none of the details. (That's unfortunately often the way with dreams; the stuff I most want to remember fades upon waking.) But I do remember the twinkle in his eye, which was there during our whole chat, a twinkle which so many of you have mentioned in your posts in the days since his death.

In the midst of all this, it suddenly occurred to me that I was being a poor host. He had traveled so far, and I hadn't offered him anything to eat or drink. So I apologized, and asked what I could get him. He said that he only wanted juice, so I went inside to get him some, filling a glass with cold orange juice from the fridge.

By the time I came back outside, glass in hand, he was gone.

And then I woke up, missing him.

Final Cover for The Living Dead

2008-07-08T03:28:42Z

John Joseph Adams has just posted the final cover to his zombie-themed anthology The Living Dead, which will reprint my Stoker-nominated novella "Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man."

As you'll note, this is yet another cover on which I appear under my famous pseudonym "many others." This time, I am share that pen name with such writers as Dan Simmons, Michael Swanwick, Jeffrey Ford, Douglas E. Winter, Joe Lansdale, Adam-Troy Castro, Andy Duncan, Harlan Ellison, and Robert Silverberg. Not too shabby!