What Is Art?

 “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” 

-- Emily Dickinson

The title may be a simple question, but it leaves so many answers. But the simplest  may be one that requires two halves of a coin to complete: the artist's work and its observer. The work brings something part way that the observers [reader, listener, and the patient watcher] takes into themselves, completes and transforms.

Another answer is that it wrestles with humanity. Who are we? Why are we? To what extent are we us and they them (be they animals, or people of different cultures, religions, philosophies)? What role do genetics, behavior, and hormones play in making us who we are? These are questions of science, psychology, and sociology, but albeit not obviously since, adding these does not necessarily improve an art. It adds depth and breadth to a work to explore. Yet no one has perused a scientific journal, read an article (as opposed to creative nonfiction) and proclaimed it art. Somebody may have, but they're unlikely to be serious.

The reason we love aliens is the same reason we love other cultures: the inherent challenge to our own belief system. We either build a new castle according to, or incorporating some of the new ideas into the design, or we modify our own design based on the enemy's tactics. In terms of structure, it's a win-win. It's all theoretical. You don't have to have your castle attacked (or have Emily Dickinson's head taken off) to redesign your castle.

The implication here is one of challenge, whatever one's personal ideology--left, right, or center. Each has something that can help you redesign your castle to make it stronger. To exclude any group is to produce what is called in biology a "bottleneck," which can lead to the extinction of a species--intellectually and spiritually if not in fact. Or maybe it would lead to extinction.

Consider, too, that despite pressures to a species--sometimes predominantly from the left, sometimes from the right--that the numbers of each group remain the same. This suggests that there is a genetic component to people's beliefs.

This also suggests that we have evolved these different philosophies to ensure our species' survival. And it further explains our love for the foreigner and their strange new philosophies.

Perhaps talk of evolution is disturbing for some. Let's view it from a historical figure: Socrates, the man who questioned every prevailing doctrine until they felt like fools. Of course, they put him to death for this, but the man walking out of a discussion with Socrates must have felt like Dickinson described above--similarly transformed.

Another historical figure had a similar modus operandi and they also put him to death for challenging authority. His art wasn't to tear down Rome ("render unto Caesar") or demolish Judeaism ("I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."), but an interior revolution within every heart. His modus operandi confuses people to this day. People will quote him out of context or put words in his mouth, but only paradox that convicts all will do. If a body thinks Jesus was only out to get the body's favorite baddies, then they have another think coming. 

Jesus used the arts--paradox and parable--to convey his ideas, to the perplexity of even his own disciples. Why? He supplies a reason, but also art that unravels inside you has a better chance of persisting, transforming. Human intelligence grows with challenge--no matter what the age. If an older adult does things that makes them learn new things, they are more likely to maintain their intelligence than those who do not.

Use it or lose it. What goes for brains, goes for brawn and bone. If you don't exercise, the body will break it down and shovel it out of the body's house. It is all to our advantage to challenge ourselves.

Therefore, limiting our art to one philosophy that supports any one group does humanity as a whole a disservice, not to mention art itself. It suggests a failure of imagination and intellect.

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Isn't it okay not to be challenged? Sure. I have an example below that some may never desire to experience. But as we suppress, especially in any one direction, the power of art diminishes.

Let me challenge myself to make the point stronger and more nuanced.

An author perennially challenges Mary Oliver as too inferior a poet to read. Let's examine a poem of hers to see if it is: "Messenger" (see link for the complete poem).

"My work is loving the world."

This is a challenge to the idea that art must challenge.

"Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
Keep my mind on what matters...

Which is my work,

Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished."

Again a challenge for those who insist on challenge, but also it suggests that we need to be astonished at the world around us leading us to enjoying life by...

"mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
And these body-clothes,"

It's not even this world that matters since the body is but clothes. 

"Telling [the clams] all, over and over, how it is
That we live forever."

These small acts of noticing the world somehow lend us a kind of immortality. But really, noticing the details in the hustle and bustle of life is part of what makes us appreciate both life and art.

We can take the art in, we mull it over, and we can accept or reject it, but it is the act of mulling that makes it art. One does not have to accept an artist's beliefs, but this act of taking in the challenge (accepting and rejecting, partially or fully) demarcates the territory of art. Readers or observers get to choose what they do with it. 

If art never or rarely challenges one's beliefs, then they are probably only reading the work of propagandists. Of course, one is welcome to such pursuits, but such a one should not engage in the disingenuous discussion of art and aesthetics. An honest self-label might be: "Flunky to the Chief Propagandist of the Blindered Party."

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One might ask, "Can't we just observe life, nature, and humanity?" That's implied above. It may be all that one aims for--a critical part of art. But the best art--or at least my favorite--is something that sits inside and I have to do something with it. But yes, observation is a necessary element.

One might ask, "Can't we just enjoy art?" Of course. In fact, bestsellers and blockbusters may lack some qualities but have something in trump cards over their artsier opponents. If you can write something that forces readers or viewers to desire the art again and again, even if it's missing other qualities of art--that itself is craft raised to an art.

This definition isn't intended to be all-encompassing but expanding the possibilities, opening the mind. There are many other elements to consider to discuss art, and this is but the rocket launch.

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This brings me to a debate writers were engaged in not long ago: actors rewriting dialogue to keep the story from getting uncomfortable. Now if they are following the characters to arrive at this conclusion, that's art. Making the narrative uncomfortable in order to challenge people doesn't necessarily make art art. Following the characters would show that the actors were trying to get at what makes these humans what they are.

But if they are bucking character and honesty and history and science to make viewers politically or socially comfortable then it may still have some art, but at a lowered level. It is not unlike a Hallmark show, which may have elements of art, but it is not meant to challenge but to comfort. There's nothing wrong with Hallmark movies, but few seem to be interested in art but in making movies that people (though they love it) dispose of once viewed. 

The debate brought up the term "present-ism" or presentism [dash provided to clarify word composition]:

"introduction of present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past.... a form of cultural bias [that] creates a distorted understanding of their subject matter." --Wikipedia

This term has been around since the 1870s although it has probably always been a problem. It may be impossible for a historical work not to be affected by presentism. However, consciously bucking history is, at best, alternate history, if intended.

But if art is not their aim but comfort or propaganda, then let it be labeled for what it is. They can name the channel "Propaganda Reruns." Not everything needs to be high art.

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When I say "propaganda," I don't mean any work with a political aim. Good art can be political--whatever one's life philosophy. Perhaps the best kind of political art challenges everyone as the historical personages above did. 

But if the enemies are strawmen and/or everything in the venue has the same political slant or the politics, then it's probably propaganda--whose aim is to persuade of one's political philosophy at the expense of the rest of the population certain belief systems. 

That's okay. Label it for what it is. But there's nothing inherently wrong with any political aim. Feigning objectivity would, however, be problematic for something whose true aim is the political over aesthetics.

When critics state something is good because it reflects some particular political ideology they'd like to be reality, it doesn't mean their judgment on this particular work is wrong, but it may show them incapable on rendering judgment on things they disagree with. Perhaps as a bigot, their whole system of aesthetics may be suspect, but perhaps not. Perhaps they are just admitting to their own bias, which would be honest. It does call into question whether they should be an art critic or maybe just a critic of arts attempting to mimick their political goals. Such bigots serve a public function of protecting their people behind a tall fence--or at least fingering what they consider dangerous, warning about those art works that stray from the fold. The Christian critic or the Muslim or the Atheist or the Capitalist or the Communist or Socialist critics [etc.] can point out roving dogs outside the fence perimeter. 

More adventuresome readers are willing to brave those dogs, to learn, to meet the other, to visit art in its other forms.

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This film was a challenge--Lords of Chaos, based on a book of nonfiction--which includes suicide, murder, pyromania, sex, sexual taunts, threats. It is definitely not designed to make you comfortable. Few, I suspect, will admire the characters, but some might, a fear which might make some want to ban it. If you can get around it--something few may be able to do (I could only watch a few minutes at a time)--it is actually thought-provoking. 

A group of young men create a musical subgenre of metal that is as much about their public behavior/persona as their music. Like their band name, they try to create mayhem by burning churches and killing. There's a moment when a character tries to explain his Nazi flag:

--And why do you do this? Is it a protest against society or...
--Bring us back to our origins.
--Our origins?
--Odin.
--So you believe in paganism, and you're a Satanist, and you're also a Nazi. That's a pretty broad belief system.
--Well, you know, these things are all connected. That may be hard for a journalist and normal people to comprehend.
--Yeah. Yes, it is.

Is it art? Yes. It captures a segment of society that most of us don't get. It shows the line between the posers and the doers. Consider the narrator and how he emerges changed or unchanged. There's a beautiful last line that works in multiple ways.  

Now some question the accuracy of this book and the movie, which could be a problem, depending on what's misrepresented. If we didn't follow the characters, then it may be a problem. They do follow the characters presented well, if not the real ones. Perhaps it works best as fictionalized nonfiction. It seems to be a serious attempt to capture the moment, and the last line suggests this as well.

Would I recommend it? To very few. Most will hate it, not having the stomach for it. 

Would I watch it again? Probably not. 

Was it worth watching? Yes.

Note: I am diametrically opposed to everything these young men said and did, yet I gained insight into how they think. Now I have come to grips with a dark mystery of human behavior--a map is drawn, the head is opened. This is why we have freedom of speech, why we listen to multiple voices. 

Perhaps this opens Pandora's box, but with an objective observer, we gain a broader understanding of what it means to be human.

Black Panther: Panther's Rage by Sheree Renée Thomas

In order to read Black Panther: Panther's Rage by Sheree Renée Thomas, I rewatched T'Challa's appearances in the Marvel universe.  

This link will take you to a discussion of superheroes and series fiction whose conclusion is to pay attention to character over the long haul. It is a risk to write any sequel. The link weighs them.

What I loved about Civil War and Black Panther are the more personal aspects of T'Challa's story--the loss of fathers and how that drives both him and his enemy. T'Challa's revelation in Civil War may be the most powerful among the ensemble. However, these two stories might have been combined into one more powerful story. 

En route to discussing WW84, I posted five rules for superhero stories here. These might make some stories better. The extraneous in Black Panther could have been cut. Andy Serkis created a fascinating character in Ulysses Klaue, making me curious about a deeper look into his person, but as the rules listed above suggest, Klaue lacks both rivaling power and a back story to be anything more than, at best, a MacGuffin. It's hard to believe he ever presented much of a problem to Wakanda. These stories should have been nothing but the clash between Erik Killmonger and T'Challa, developing both characters in greater depth.

Wakanda, however, is a rich mine and presents a story worth exploring itself. There have been rumors that a new story about this is on the way.

In some ways, Black Panther: Panther's Rage corrects this. Klaue falls away, and the story becomes an intriguing battle of strength, will, and philosophy between Killmonger and T'Challa. This is it's unique strength the novel draws on--something I hadn't expected.

The five rules I listed above don't much come into play in this novel except somewhat for Monica, T'Challa's girlfriend, and Erik Killmonger. Monica's story may be the richest here as the person who has to overcome the most. She is opposed by people in Wakanda as an outsider. T'Challa's involvement with anyone outside Wakanda seems to be an issue--such as his work with the Avengers. It is a battle of identity, of purity. Does Wakanda contaminate itself by involving themselves with Monica, an American, and the Avengers?

Elsewhere I read that Thomas's novel is a novelization of the 1973-1976 comic series also called Panther's Rage. I skimmed the opening, and they don't seem to have much overlap. Maybe they do later on. Thomas's version does seem to link itself more closely to the cinematic versions, rather than here, but that would require more research than I have time to spelunk at the moment. Feel free to explore for yourself.

The opening paragraph:

Night became her. When he watched Monica, the blue tinge of club lights shimmered across her velvety skin. He knew that she had become as much a part of him as the molvecules of night. In a few months, To T'Challa's surprise, she had become his necessarty thing: the air he breathed.

If you love the movies, you'll love this book. It looks at the battle between Killmonger and T'Challa from quite a different angle.

Greg Bear: Rembrance

Gregory Dale Bear--born August 20, 1951, died November 19, 2022--is one of the great SF writers of his generation. With nearly fifty years of publication, at least thirty to forty of them would leave his colleagues envious.

The photo to the right is how I most remember Greg Bear--the broad smile, the crinkly eyes--although it probably wasn't his only or even his main expression. But this is what sticks with me. That memory lingers on his pleasant disposition says much about the man.

He was brilliant in most things he did. He told us at Clarion West: "I can talk and you can learn from me, or you can talk, and I'll learn from you."

If you were lucky enough to party at his house, his library awed all of us to silence.

Bear was a master of many fields. I gave a signed copy of Bear's novel, Darwin's Radio, to a microbiologist friend who was impressed with Bear's scientific knowledge. He felt like they were colleagues.

But Bear didn't get a PhD or even a B.S. in any scientific field but a degree in English. If you want a masterclass on creating characters, read his Hugo/Nebula winning novelette, "Blood Music," then compare that to the novel version, which deepens the characters. He takes a novelette--good enough to win awards--and makes it better. Most writers would have simply added on to what they'd done.

Here's an interview worth watching to learn about the recollections of man in his later years:

Wonder Woman 1984, or Better Ways to Do Superheroes, or Trent's Five Laws of Superhero Stories

Friends, family, colleagues told me they loved WW84 while critics excoriated it. I read and watched the criticisms, which steered me clear, but I did eventually watch it, driven by curiosity about the contrast in sentiment. Perhaps, being forewarned, I liked it better than expected. A lot of the critiques are interesting in that what some didn't understand, others thought was too on-the-nose.

The WW84 story is far from simple, but I will attempt to make seem so: A stone grants users one wish. But that wish, the users later find out, comes at a cost. Some will fight to stop the use of the stone while others will fight to protect it.

The movie did a lot of things right, and a number could have been done better. This trailer suggests one thing that could have been utilized better:

This is an excellent musical montage with music from the era: New Order's "Blue Monday" updated. Why set it in 1984 if they don't utilize it more? They do use Frankie Goes to Hollywood in a scene that seemed quite effective, helping both capture the era and the sense of a party, both annoyingly distracting for some and alluring for others:

Warning: Spoilers from here on.

The movie introduces a lot of "new" ideas or powers that Wonder Woman is said to have, and some that belong to others. We'll come back to that. 

Now some complained about realism. Well, all superhero movies are fantasy. Iron Man would be dead within a few days, if not minutes, of using his machine, thanks to Newton's Laws of Motion, among other scientific facts. We accept that he could master flying and avoid getting killed. Sure, some stretch credulity, but just run with it. Most of the early powers seem buyable, assuming the nature of super heroes.

One new power, though--invisibility--comes out of nowhere. Better would have been to introduce the power in the way Shazam learns and observes his powers: a role model although this shouldn't be the only way. It happens to make sense:

So the First Law of Superheroes:

1. Gaining superpowers should make sense, not according to our reality but according to the reality of the superhero universe. The audience should be there to witness what the power means to the character within the greater context. Finally, there should be a reason to add this power.

Next, Wonder Woman gains the ability to fly. If she is never going to work with Superman again on the same team, then okay. But each character should have her own unique abilities on the team. "But she needs to fly!" someone might say. Why? What's the point in an invisible jet or armored wings? Why bother? "Because they're cool." True, but then why bother introducing them if she doesn't need them?

Limiting this would have spared the use of moments designed to wow but which came off silly, such as web-slinging on lightning with her lasso. 

"But didn't you say that superheroes are fantasy?" Good point. However, lightning is energy, not matter, so you can't use energy in the same way you'd use matter, even in a fantasy (or if you've changed the laws of the universe, demonstrate how).

Better: Grab the pair of armored wings, and multiple story problems are solved.

2. Superheroes working on a team should have unique traits that make them suitable to working together. Think of it as the heist team. You need the explosive expert, the fire arms expert, the architect who knows the layout and its weaknesses, the getaway car driver who knows how to handle a car. Think of it as a book or comic book publishing team--all of the necessary jobs to make the team work. Redundancy means certain people can be cut. This goes for the baddie team, which can be redundant, but that means they can be killed.

I loved Shazam, but the above makes a sequel difficult. What makes each character's powers unique? Still, I do wish they'd done sequels immediately.

Wonder Woman 1984 adds two new villains. We do understand the motivation for each character. In fact, each character's reason for being is better drawn than most superhero movies draw--the strongest appeal in this particular movie, perhaps. Unfortunately, we don't get enough information about each character's unique abilities to make us invested in a final showdown. So maybe we need just one villain per movie to fully develop the baddie.

3.  Each major superhero and baddie needs an origin story. This means we need to understand their reasons for being, but also their relative strengths and weaknesses. One or both of them may already be confident in their abilities, but we still need to know why they are here and what's new this time and why. If this is a new battle between Joker and Batman, what is different about each this time? How might the outcome be different? That's their origin story for this particular tale.

The wishmaker story is powerful. Someone could make your dream come true, at a cost. Is it worth it? But what powers does this wishmaker actually possess that we'd be invested in watching the final confrontation?

4. Each major superhero and villain should have characteristics or skills that make them suitable for fighting in the climax.

5. The outcome for the hero should be in doubt. Otherwise, why watch the movie or read the book? If the way to win is simple, then you just wasted everyone's time and money to sit down and watch your movie.

If you can just slice through your enemy's starship and kill them all, then it's a stupid story. The problem was too small to begin with. There was never very much at stake.

Wonder Woman 1984, on the other hand, has a comparative embarrassment of riches: two stories worth telling. We have two women contrasting: one who wants to be noticed, one who does not. That deserves one complete movie by itself to fully develop it. Barbara Minerva's story is not only moving but also her transformation is visually exhilarating. The problem is we don't know what skills she possesses that might enable her to defeat Wonder Woman--rules 4 and 5.

The wishmaker story is also powerful and worth telling, but it's not clear why Wonder Woman needs to be involved. His revelation seems to be more of an interior one, rather than one fought through fisticuffs. We don't even know how the two might do battle, anyway. But what was wonderful was how Wonder Woman's desire for something was so powerful, that she was willing to become weaker and even struggled against this desire in order to save the world. Moving.

There may be more rules, but this should suffice for now.

The Rocket of 1955 by C. M. Kornbluth

 

There a question of when and where this story first appeared. Some claim the fanzine, Escape, in August 1939. Others claim Donald A. Wollheim's Stirring Science Fiction. It was reprinted in a few major retrospectives and elsewhere, by Melvin R. Colby, Christopher Cerf, Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander, 

Set-Up:

Two men rally a nation behind sending a professor to Mars on a rocket.

Analysis with Spoilers:

This is the shortest of Kornbluth's published works but still packs quite a wallop.

The purpose of the rocket was not to send anyone anywhere, but to explode. What the tale is about may be confusing until Fein tells the professor, trapped inside the rocket: "Anna Pareloff of Cracow, Herr Professor." One should  recall when the tale was published, either in 1939 or in 1941.

Kornbluth was of Polish Jewish descent, so when the country was first invaded on September 1, 1939, that must have hit home for Kornbluth. The Polish Jews were segregated into ghettos. The story was printed three times before the US had entered the war.

The story anticipates the Nuremberg trials. 

One wonders whether the name "Anna Pareloff" belonged to an actual person. Also of note is the stated reluctance to carry the plan through and the expectation of capital punishment, perhaps because this was pre-death camps. It seems to have been hatched by a legal entity with no trial, so there's that, too.

Intellectual Hospitality by Diana Pavlac Glyer, Ph.D.

Excerpts from an essay located here:

In the classroom, the concept of intellectual hospitality occurs when students engage with unfamiliar ideas, read books from unknown authors, and entertain new ways of looking at the world. Though they often resist it at first, I ask them to slow down, be patient, ask good questions, seek to understand. I want them to consider the possibility that even the most farfetched idea may contain something of significance. If nothing else, it may serve as a catalyst to help them clarify what it is that they truly believe....

Intellectual hospitality encourages us to engage with new ideas, not merely contradict, dismiss, dispute, reject, or ridicule them. When people react with skepticism and distrust, discussion often dissolves into a matter of winning and losing, a cycle of contradiction and strife. People are used to the Doubting Game—playing devil’s advocate or being argumentative or contrary. The Believing Game is harder—and more hospitable....

And, at its best, intellectual hospitality takes us deeper than mere tolerance. It calls us to something higher, something better, something that marks our character and transforms our souls. It teaches us to cultivate generosity, humility, kindness, and patience, and it helps us overcome selfishness, insecurity, suspicion, and shame.

 

Ancestries by Sheree Renée Thomas

First appeared in Nine Bar Blues, up for a Locus award, reprinted by John Joseph Adams and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki.

Fele and Yera are twin sisters, with a lifetime of sibling rivalry. Yera is the superior and flaunts it in her sister's face. There is much talk of ancestors, buried deep. The story is told while Fele seems to be in the process of being sacrificed.

Well structured, suspending the most painful outcome presented at the beginning, revealed at the end.

Two More Prose Poems ("Treesong" and "How Sukie Cross de Big Wata") by Sheree Renee Thomas

"How Sukie Cross de Big Wata" first appeared in Nalo Hopkinson's Mojo: Conjure Stories. Also appears in Thomas's Shotgun Lullabies: Stories & Poems (discussed in part here, more generally).

Sukie is a kind of American Tall-Tale mythic figure who is there to support the Africans on the difficult first voyages across the ocean--a kind of bridge for their stories. It includes this lovely, potent line:

"And if you listen true, you will know when I am bending it and when I am telling it straight, ’cause like a river, every story got a bend."

 You can read this prose poem here in the Shotgun Lullabies excerpt.

You will love this prose poem more if you juxtapose it against "Treesong" which also is enhanced in the comparison.

"Treesong" first appeared in Rose Lemberg's An Alphabet of Embers reprinted by John Joseph Adams, appearing in Thomas's collection, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life.

This one moves closer to a speculative tale, relating the lives of trees as the younger ones desire to pick up their roots and cross "de Big Wata" in what might be a disastrous move.

"the young ones try to work themselves into any pool that mirrors the land, hoping it will lead them to De Big Wata and carry them back home to where the people remember their name."

Read this at Lightspeed.

Two Prose Poems ("The Jubilee" and "Not All Caged Birds Sing") by Sheree Renee Thomas

 Both first appeared in Fireside.

In "The Jubilee" slaves have just been freed:

"during the Jubilee, there was plenty of names. People shuffled them like cards and drew new ones out the deck, tried names on their tongues like new year clothes, whispered and shouted them into the bright clean air to see how they fit, licked their lips to see how they taste."

And in "Not All Caged Birds Sing" the world seems to be occupied a palimpsest of reality, dream and metaphor, amplifying the allusive title:

"Wind sang in that empty place, and I wanted to sing but my tongue sprouted roots and leaves. They wrapped around my throat until I could not breathe."

Both of these appear in the same magazine around the same time period. They seem to form part of a larger poetic sequence. They juxtapose well together, if intentional, although the location of other pieces would be greatly appreciated.

"Barefoot and Midnight" by Sheree Renée Thomas

First appeared in Apex Magazine. Recommended by Locus, Tangent Online. Reprinted by Paula Guran.

Mourning those who died in arson-burned The Freedmen’s School in Gayoso’s Flats, Dusa Dayan builds a "ragged mud doll":

"Wrapped in tree roots, its garment was tattered. Whatever color or pattern it once held faded long ago. A dark, rust-colored stain covered the space where its heart once was. It had no head. Only a red ribbon where it should be. It had no limbs. No mouth or plump cheeks and belly to kiss and pinch."

The doll has more to it than it first seems.

The story takes on another dimension in its final lines.

Read online at Apex.

The Dark Land by C. L. Moore

First appeared in Farnsworth Wright's Weird Tales. Reprinted by Roger Elwood and Vic Ghidalia for a feminist anthology.

Jirel, on her death bed after receiving a pike-wound to her side, cannot be healed. As she is about to enter death with a priest to deliver last rites, she is whisked away to a new world.  

Commentary (with Spoilers)

Jirel is miraculously healed in the new world. However, it is by Pav, King of Romne, a kingdom with strange borders and ways of moving through it. She is not grateful, and he seems full of himself. He allows her to seek a weapon to fight him. If he should win, he gains her. If not, she gains her freedom.

She encounters a witch, described not unlike Jirel was described on her deathbed--white and death-like ("the face of Death itself") yet somehow attractive (Jirel is near the mountains she claimed to throw herself off of if Pav should somehow win her). The witch claims that Jirel is her rival, so presumably she had been or at least desired to be Pav's companion, lover, or queen. 

Despite the announcement of their rivalry, Jirel accepts the witch's advice on how to defeat the king--to put out the flame around his head with the flame around her head which he'd given to her. Presumably, the act is a humbling or breaking down of his ego. He protects her despite this, presumably because he might not be able to stop the witch from killing Jirel, a rival on the loose. 

Does Jirel like him now? Well, he's watched and admired her from afar. He's saved her life twice. She may or may not have cottoned to him as a partner (her first "lover" had done far less to merit her love, though), but surely she understands him differently.

Father Gervase is an interesting figure--some sort of Christian priest, presumably. He appears in two tales. With good advice in the first, he warns against certain action, which we learn to be wisdom--at least to an extent. His appearance here is probably to lend credence to the belief that, when her bed is empty, she was snatched by the devil himself. 

That may be her own perspective when she arrives. It seems that she likely has another feeling when she leaves. 

Christian imagery runs through the opening. It doesn't appear to be meant to make her be a Christ figure, but just to recall similar scenarios. She has a spear in her side as Christ had. And she spends time in another realm before returning to her own. Perhaps this is meant to signal that she'd visited Paradise--or a kind of--and, rejecting it, was ejected.

This is the first story to challenge Jirel's perspective, that her judgment of others or perspective may be flawed. This actually goes a long way to explaining Jirel's actions in the first two stories. The story foreshadows this perspective with "[t]he great two-edged sword which she wielded so recklessly in the heat of combat." 

Moore takes the sword away and this forces a new kind of confrontation, which would likely have been useless in this situation, anyway.  The witch calls her a "presumptuous fool" whom she promises to kill:

"Blind, hot, earthly woman, with your little hates and vengeances, how could you have reigned queen over Romne that is Darkness itself"

Perhaps as stated near the beginning, Pav is a kind of devil, but he seems awfully kind to be a devil. Perhaps he is a middle ground, or perhaps it is a place run by heaven and hell. Whatever it is, it's never really clarified. But comparisons to the afterlife are plentiful. 

On second thought, it seems Jirel is just happy to be back, which no one can blame her for. She left home where she was in control in multiple ways. Whether the events of the tale impacted her may not be visible until a later story--in the same way this story illuminates the reading of the first two. Perhaps not, though.

It's unclear yet what the stories are addressing--perhaps other stories of love between men and women in the genre, or perhaps her own encounters (the men often manipulate reality, which might mean writers, and she did marry the writer Henry Kuttner). Or is she addressing women, addressing possible misunderstandings? Or perhaps she's addressing society with an upper-class barbarian--too civilized, or not civilized at all.

Jirel Meets Magic by C. L. Moore

 

First appeared in Farnsworth Wright's Weird Tales. Reprinted by Lin Carter, Pamela Sargent, Eric Pendragon, Robert H. Boyer, Kenneth J. Zahorski, Michael Parry, Sean Richards, Tom Shippey.

Jirel pursues the wizard Giraud into his own castle; however, his bloody footprints lead to a window and disappear.

Commentary (with Spoilers)

Jirel follows the tracks to find his sorceress mate who seems to be protecting him in this other realm--a woman who disappears and reappears with the sound of a door. In an attempt to save a wood nymph, Jirel is handed the key to destroying the sorceress who rules this realm.

Strangely, republishing this story did not take off until thirty-six years after its first publication, selected for various sword-and-sorcery publications, which was the hay day for that type of fiction, one feminist, and one major fiction anthology (about sixty years later). 

This is a powerful work, cinching the strings of the novel or collection together. What's strange was the belated editorial focus on the tale's strengths. It truly sells the collection as being what James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock one of "The 100 Best Books [of Fantasy]."

In "Black God's Kiss" and "Black God's Shadow", we have a journey into the subconscious (perhaps one's own or some supernatural dark that undergirds our existence). Here, though, we journey into the mind of another as can be seen by the unseen doors. Jirel must see through the illusions presented by another. What appears to be outdoors is indoors. The interiors of many homes often mimic the verdant exteriors--plants, flowers, colors and wildlife. Here it is literal, confusing not only where one is, but also where one is in another 's house. "Jirel's whole world turned inside out about her." This seems be an illusion confusing Jirel's mind--one of several she must overcome to reach her goal. Piercing the illusion seems to be the goal. It can't be too much of a stretch to consider art--written or otherwise--as a creation of another kind of illusion, which may need to pierced as well.

It's fascinating that her armor or "mail" (a homonym signifying Guillaume since she decided not to love again after him?) make her "impregnable to the men" (mentioned twice). Much of the first few pages could be an allusion to what occurred in the earlier tales--her love for Guillaume protecting from the desires of other men. Does it belong here? Only as part of a longer work and perhaps thematically. Giraud's crime is also not fully clear; however, he does abandon one mistress to reach out for another, meaning his attachment is not strong.

What her eyes being yellow means (due to blood-lust) is unclear. Are the irises yellow (do they change or was it hyperbole)? Or are the sclera yellow, due to blood, bile, or liver failure? Is it the blood of herself of others that creates the color change? It is probably best to think of the blood in multiple senses--from menstruation (a blood-letting unique to her gender), to death, to what brings oxygen to remain alive. If it's the sclera, it might be a subtle undermining of the character. Or is it the flaw that makes it perfect?

Black God's Shadow by C. L. Moore

 First appeared in Farnsworth Wright's Weird Tales. A direct sequel to "Black God's Kiss."

Jirel hears Guillaume's voice calling to her, both beckoning and calling her his "murderess." She returns to the underworld or the dark dimension beneath the dungeons of Joiry to find the lost, tormented soul, for whom she holds complicated feelings. 

Commentary (with Spoilers)

Jirel articulates her guilt. Perhaps Moore seems to be exploring Jirel's strange feelings toward the conqueror she realized too late that she'd come to love. After following the voice across the lands, she discovers the black stone god who'd been tormenting him with visions of Jirel.

Not only does Moore get a chance to explain Jirel, but also the writing improves.

Religion returns. The surface world might be governed by something akin to Christianity while beneath the dungeons (the subconscious?) lurks a darker, more primal religion (underworld? hell? or an existence beneath our conscious selves?). Verifying the subconscious interpretation is the way the underworld unfolds in a dream- or nightmare-like manner. Using a variant of Taoism, Jirel concludes that Guillaume must have had goodness to complement the evil.

When she frees his shadow, she is expunged of her guilt (eternally damning Guillaume due perhaps to her neglecting to allow him to repent).

At one point, she names Guillaume as a lover, which raises a host of questions. Does this suggest forced love? Or is this just a label for one who loves? The former seems unlikely given her attitude toward Guillaume, but perhaps her feelings are truly complicated.

If written today, these might have difficulty finding a publisher, or if published, they might have created a negative stir--despite their feminist attitudes--due to her complex feelings toward her conqueror, but perhaps later generations, more interested in art than politics, will see her more as a complex character than a mirror of or opposition to one's political ideals.

The terms "Shadow" and "Kiss" from the titles could equally belong to Guillaume and the Black God [not a reference to melanin, as far as I can tell ], perhaps conflating them, or playing with Guillaume's elevated stature in her world, and this journey is one within her own self, liberating her sense of love, liberty and guilt. 

It's not completely clear the final allusion to Philippians 4. Is it the self who brought the peace? Or is it another? Or has it come via the self's act through another because it was ordained by a supernatural other?

Black God's Kiss by C. L. Moore

First appeared in Farnsworth Wright's Weird Tales. Reprinted by L. Sprague de Camp, Martin H. Greenberg, Robert Silverberg, Jessica Yates, David G. Hartwell, Jacob Weisman, Lisa Yaszek, Mark Finn, Chris Gruber, Jeffrey Shanks.

Jirel of Joiry is the commander of Joiry's army--arms trussed and taken before Guillaume, the conquering enemy. He is surprised to find his fierce opponent is actually a wild, red-haired woman. Admiring her beauty, he steals a kiss but is rebuffed. He smacks her to the ground and has her taken to a cell.

Commentary (with Spoilers)

Jirel escapes and ventures into a dark land where she steals a kiss from a black stone god to deliver to Guillaume.

The darkness is either an escape from evocative writing, or a self-imposed limitation to force the narrative into interesting directions--just as "Shambleau" takes place in just one room. There are a few inspired moments--such as walking the bridge, and the opening and closing.

Speaking of Shambleau, this tale serves as a kind of parallel or opposite to that earlier (arguably stronger) tale. They seem to invite comparison.

What's fascinating here, though, is Jirel's regret. The opening does not necessarily suggest attraction, but the ending does, even as she delivers her death blow with a kiss. This complication makes it fascinating. Perhaps violence is, for this character, foreplay.

That is not the only complication. She carries a crucifix, yet she carries another god or demon within to kill the enemy she now has new feelings about.

Discussion of the sequel will appear here.

Virtual Reality: Facebook's Metaverse + R. R. Angell's Best Game

 Here's a summary on or an edited version of Facebook's Metaverse without distorting their perspective:

Here's a proponent who loved it. 

Note: there was a con-Metaverse video that joked about it as an apocalypse, etc. But the distortion was too great to present. One should be able to come up with their own con-list by watching this pro-Metaverse video:

Genevieve Bell at MIT Technology Review presents a historical view, crediting Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash as the inspiration that kicked it off.

Have I said I love Snow Crash? I love Snow Crash. One of the great novels in the field.

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I would be remiss if I did not recommend Best Game Ever: A Virtuella Novel by R R Angell.  Angell's work has appeared in Asimov's and Interzone. This nearly 500-page novel sweeps you away that seems a possibly prescient future with a world that felt real. 

 I normally notice the length of novels. I did not here. However, I was unconvinced by the first beau, which I think should have edited down. But other than that I recommend this work to anyone interested in AI or virtual reality. I hope to do a longer review later.

Literary (Ballard, Burroughs, and Gibson), TV, and movie links +

Eileen Gunn on William Gibson's first famed novel, Neuromancer, approaching 40 years old.

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Here's J. G. Ballard on fitting himself and Burroughs within the larger literary culture.

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Words known better by males than by females (left), and vice versa

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Amazon revisits Tolkien's universe. Billion dollar investment. Interested. Withholding judgment. 

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Promising trailer for Dino glory?

Vermilion Sands by J. G. Ballard

This is a collection of stories of humanity at some pinnacle (nadir?) of time when men and women devote their time to the arts. Elsewhere a reviewer described this as Ballard's only positive work. 

In his preface, he writes the "heavens [of most SF stories] are like other people's hells" and that these stories display a desert resort where "work is the ultimate play and play the ultimate work"--a place he'd like to live. Ballard states this is his vision of the future although a commentary on the present.

For Judith Merril's Best SF 12, he wrote: 

"Vermilion Sands is not in Arizona, or anywhere in the USA, not on another planet, which one or two people over the years have accused. Also, there is no sea here, although so many of the images, are marine--the beach ambiance, the sandrays, the reefs. This is a desert area, but so crystallized that it has almost produced a new fauna and flora of its own."

This is a bit odd since eight years later he would suggest Arizona is a spiritual ancestor--not backtracking, exactly, but it suggests his vision of it mutated, perhaps as he wrote the stories, or as he discussed them with others. Also, there's that strange, operative word "almost" which throws a monkey wrench into the sentence's ultimate sense.

Is his vision of the future positive? Most of his covers look post-apocalyptic, which may or may not have served the work, but why is it set at edge of a desert? Life may exist there, but sparsely. A desert seems to suggest life near the end of its tether. In his story, "Prima Belladonna" suggests that the life of the artist leads to a kind of death--real or not.

The arrangement of stories varied:

1971 Berkley Medallion:

1. Prima Belladonna
2. The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista
3. Cry Hope, Cry Fury!
4. Venus Smiles
5. Studio 5, The Stars
6. The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D
7. Say Goodbye to the Wind
8. The Screen Game

The 1973 Jonathan Cape edition adds "The Singing Statues" and rearranges the order. I will assume this is the author's favored version since it appeared in this order afterward (although it's possible that the first edition order was closer to his original vision that was altered over time). The links go to commentary on individual stories:

1. The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D
2. Prima Belladonna
3. The Screen Game
4. The Singing Statues
5. Cry Hope, Cry Fury!
6. Venus Smiles
7. Say Goodbye to the Wind
8. Studio 5, The Stars
9. The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista
   

The 1975 Panther edition adds a preface but maintains the new order. Later editions tended to follow the Panther or Cape editions (with or without the preface). So this seems to be the standard.

Perhaps the anthologizing by Peter Haining and Judith Merril influenced his first conception. The descriptive writing of the later story "The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D", though, is superior. Perhaps that sets a higher bar for the collection. I don't know that flipping the order of the first two stories of the later editions is critical. The current first story, Cloud-Sculptors, does elevate the language and probably does draw in more literate readers browsing through the bookstore, but perhaps Prima Belladonna does have its own strengths.

The real advantage on the new order is changing which story comes last. Putting "The Screen Game" last does suggest the deterioration of those resort town, and perhaps of art itself, a continuing thread, but "The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista" brings the art to the reader. A lot of the stories are at a kind of remove, outsiders viewing the main artists (even if the viewers might be artists themselves), but here it is clearly just an admirer of the art, who comes in, smitten, and exits profoundly changed.

I'm not sure that either story is the culmination of the works gathered here--and it is more of a collection than a solid work, so we shouldn't hold it to that level--but it does have a greater impact, emotionally and metaphorically than his first choice. Art may consume the artist as it seems to in a lot of these tales, but it doesn't often consume those who appreciate it. It shifts the frame and helps see the whole in a new light. It's interesting that Ballard had a fondness for the story--demonstrated by how he placed it second and last--when no one else chose to reprint the tale.

Cultural Ephemera: The Eye of Argon + the "Star Wars Kid" + Hope

When I attended Clarion in Seattle, they called it a six-week bootcamp for writers. Inevitably, tensions rose as people lacked sleep trying to write and critique stories by talented if new writers. The writing workshop provided multiple ways to distract and amuse you--toys, stuffed animals, books, magazines, illustrations. We had a slush pile to read. There were also stories in photocopied manuscripts that never saw light--such as William Gibson's script for an Alien sequel. (Reminder: this is his failed manuscript, not made into a movie, but decades later is written as an audio play with a novelization by Pat Cadigan.)

One manuscript they kept, was called The Eye of Argon--famously bad. The author's name was unattached. There were rumors that one anonymous person had written it (or some famous writer's early hack work?) while some said that multiple Clarion writers and their teachers like Samuel Delany tried to write the worst story possible. Someone invented game rules for reading the manuscript at conventions.

At the behest of writer friends I read the opening paragraph. I didn't laugh--perhaps smiled to humor the writers--since as an editor I'd seen a lot of bad manuscripts and I'd tried to encourage them all as gently as possible. I didn't have the time to read it, so I put away the manuscript. 

If there were a point to having the manuscript float among writers, it would have been to say: 

1. Take a break. Laugh. Relax.
   
2. Your first drafts may be this bad, so rewrite.
3. Don't publish your early drafts or juvenilia.

Later, we all learned the writer of Eye was a sixteen-year-old from Missouri (I only just learned in the past twenty-four hours), a writer who died two decades ago, now. It was originally printed in a small fanzine that was passed on to a professional writer. The writer of Eye even wrote a sequel.

Some years ago, people passed around links of the "Star Wars kid"--a kid who jumped around with his light-saber. Remember: In the movies, actors have trainers who help actors practice their moves. This kid's self-training video was posted. The teasing got so bad, the family had to move.

The Eye of Argon had a similar effect on the author. A good sport, he seems to have even taken part in readings--thirty years afterwards--poking fun at his juvenilia, but it haunted him. He apparently became a journalist, so presumably he could write, but this kept him from writing fiction, the past hung like an albatross around his neck. 

There's a reason why Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has a big impact. Everybody has an albatross. Ulysses S. Grant started his career as a drunk. Abraham Lincoln had depression. The writer, St. Paul, had mysterious "thorn" whatever that was. Evidently, to write this epic poem, Samuel Taylor Coleridge had his own albatross (and/or he knew someone else who had). Either embrace your albatross or shuck it off.

The writer of Eye should have kept writing. He actually has a huge platform.There have been scholarly articles written. Internet postings. A Wikipedia article. Multiple conventions and radio shows devoted to reading it. A few editors appropriated the material and published at least four different editions. 

Think about the "Star Wars kid"--he's already got an immediate audience. Whatever he does next, wherever he is, if he announces himself, he's got our immediate attention. (So make it good, kid. The cool kids are rooting for you.)

Besides, what moves people far more than juvenalia? Writers who went on to write something better. Think of it as a home, face, or hair makeover. Who isn't excited to witness a transformation, an upgrade, giving hope for themselves?

Sure, someone would always bring up The Eye, but they are just the people who never shrugged off their albatross and want you to stay in the doldrums with them--someone to feel stronger than, or better looking than, or better at writing. All the cool people would be impressed not only by a success story, but by a well-written tale. The writer of Eye seems to have won a scholarship for his journalism, so he was an award-winning writer! Why not keep this speculative writing up as a sideline and hire a professional to help out?.

Would I want to be the the writer of Eye, would I want his albatross? Hell, no. Nobody wants another man's albatross. They've already got their own. We just want to see you win as we hope to win ourselves one day.

If the writer of Eye were still alive, I'd encourage him to try again. Yes, there's a reason why I wrote "The writer of Eye": because he is all of us.

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Elsewhere, a writer, weighed down by their own mysterious albatross, adrift in their own doldrums (described as having spiritual aspects) solicited advice to get out. Here are a few possibilities:

• Find the thing that energized you--or used to. Go do that. 
  

• Write. No expectations. Not a particular story unless it jazzes you. Write whatever--essay, poem, story. Let whatever's in you out. But write in the way that empowers you. For me, that is language that pays attention to language. If it's good, great. No expectations.

• Walk or jog outside for 15 minutes/day at least. If you have a god who listens, vent. If you have no god, invent an imaginary friend. Tell him whatever's on your mind.

The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D by J. G. Ballard [Vermilion Sands]

Eventually, the hub of commentary on the Vermilion Sands will be located here.

This story first appeared in Edward L. Ferman's The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Judith Merril, Roger Zelazny, Edward L. Ferman, Martin Harry Greenberg, Joseph Olander, Frederik Pohl, Philip Hensher.

A group of cloud sculptors--some of whom have been undermining their own work--are commissioned by the rich, Leonora Chanel, to construct her portrait in the sky.

The story opens letting us in on their certain demise.

Commentary with Spoilers:

That the art is dependent on the shape of clouds, changed wind and sun, suggests the very destructibility and impermanence of art. Nolan seems to take an active part in its impermanence, pointing out death in the life of an infant:

"Illuminated by the afternoon sun [on the cloud sculpture] was the serene face of a three-year-old child....

"Nolan seemed unable to accept his own handiwork, always destroying it with the same cold humour....

"he worked away at the cloud, and then someone slammed a car door in disgust.

"Hanging above us was the white image of a skull."

The figure of Nolan might be a metaphor for Ballard's own art within the genre. See the discussion of Zelazny below, which might explain Lenore Chanel: "Let the rich choose their materials [out of which art is created]."

The character of Lenore Chanel seems to allude to two figures: Coco Chanel, the 20th century fashion guru, whose career started in what might be considered feminist revision of fashion, whose name still signifies the upper class, but whose relationship with the Nazis tainted her. Lenore is a doomed figure of pride yet adoration although it had been used by the Romantics as a personage prefiguring vampire literature. Ballard seems to have consciously used these and put Lenore in a cobra suit, an alligator suit, and peacock feathers.

Why Lenora chose these artists who attack their own art remains a mystery. Was she uninformed? Possibly, although that seems unlikely. Perhaps she had an invisible [to the narrator] self-destructive streak. Why send artists off to their possible destruction while they create your portrait? Wouldn't you fear their striking back through their art? Why mock the hunchback who is about to carve her face? It must be a kind of sado-masochistic desire to hurt and to be hurt. Or does she think that money will protect her from abuse? Yet she must know what these artists have done before, or why go to them?

There's also a bit of mystery in the style, where much of the description is evocative, brilliant and painterly:

"All summer the cloud-sculptors would come from Vermilion Sands and sail their painted gliders above the coral towers that rose like white pagodas beside the highway to Lagoon West. The tallest of the towers was Coral D, and here the rising air above the sand-reefs was topped by swan-like clumps of fair-weather cumulus. Lifted on the shoulders of the air above the crown of Coral D, we would carve seahorses and unicorns, the portraits of presidents and film stars, lizards and exotic birds. As the crowd watched from their cars, a cool rain would fall on to the dusty roofs, weeping from the sculptured clouds as they sailed across the desert floor towards the sun."

But then there are occasionally odd descriptions that are difficult to visualize:

"One was a small hunchback with a child’s over-lit eyes and a deformed jaw twisted like an anchor barb to one side."

Perhaps this is meant as a mirror to the art discussed: the grotesque. The other "anchor" in the story is the narrator's crutches, trying to anchor in the sand -- a sea metaphor without a sea, an anchor that cannot be anchored, and art that is ephermeral.

Nolan, sick of Lenora's cruelty and self-absorption, destroys both Lenora, her edifice of opulence, and the art around her. The story's ending mirrors "Prima Belladonna" a little too closely--the way Nolan and Jane both die yet live on perhaps in reality or just in myth. Perhaps the similarity explains why Ballard originally separated the two, and why he brought them together in later editions.

It depends on which edition of Vermilion Sands you read whether this story is first or "Prima Belladonna" and this is buried toward the back. Perhaps the order is immaterial, but it does suggest the importance of the work to Ballard, or perhaps to the later editor at Jonathan Cape.

It's fascinating that the tale was included in the Roger-Zelazny-edited Nebula Awards 3, in which he states all of the stories were nominated for the Nebula awards; however, it isn't listed as being one of the nominees. Nonetheless, Zelazny not only includes the story but places it at the front, suggesting its importance to the whole volume:

"Ever play Max Ernst games by staring up at that tent of blue we prisoners call the sky? If so, I think you will appreciate this story. If not, you can always do it over again yourself by regarding Up. It takes a true architect of the nervous system and the environment, however, to not only play this game, but to play it well. J. G. Ballard, I submit, is one of the greatest cloud-sculptors I have ever witnessed in action.

"So put on the appropriate piece by Debussy, and bear in mind that despite Cervantes, last year's clouds are not so useless as they may seem. No.

"I chose to open the volume with this story, to set the Magritte-mood of reality twice removed and, perhaps because of this, twice as real."

This may have been in rebellion to the rebellion against the New Wave, which was in rebellion to the Old Wave or the then-traditional SF. Or maybe the nomination snub was just a rebellion against Ballard, who had been also publishing his dismal dystopias and The Atrocity Exhibition at the same time, experimentation with the very nature of storytelling itself.

Reminder: this is all speculation. Yet how did Zelazny not know that the story had not been officially nominated? How did his editors and publishers not know?

Prima Belladonna by J. G. Ballard [Vermilion Sands]

Eventually, the hub of commentary on the Vermilion Sands will be located here.

This story first appeared in John Carnell's Science Fantasy. Reprinted in a few major genre retrospectives by Judith Merril, Martin H. Greenberg, Damon Knight, Joseph D. Olander, Kathryn Cramer, David G. Hartwell. 

All the guys seem to go crazy for a golden-hued female mutant named Jane Ciracylides. Except Steve, the narrator, who is attracted but restrains himself. Instead he focuses on his choro-flora--plants that sing although the conditions and environment have to be just so, or he could lose his crop.

The trouble comes when Jane visits his plant shop. 

Commentary with Spoilers

The one plant she wants he cannot sell. She makes his plants sing in ways he's never seen. 

She turns out to be a major singer herself, and becomes Steve's lover. It all ends when Steve suggests it will end. The ending, though, is a bit ambiguous.

The description makes it sound like the plant that she's been drawn to, is aroused. Is it that or is her entrance an act of pollination? She, after all, has insect eyes. A third possibility is that she, entranced or conscious, is consumed by the plant.

When Steve tries to pull her away, she begs to continue, so Steve prevents his friends from disengaging her from the plant.

The story makes it sound like she might have been killed, or possibly continued on elsewhere. Perhaps it's a Schrodinger's cat scenario.

Note: 1) A prima donna is a talented singer, if perhaps full of herself. 2) Belladonna is a deadly plant although it has medicinal properties. Perhaps all meanings are on display.

Judith Merril praised it as "one of the very few entirely new s-f ideas of the last few years." Also laudable is the characterization of men--those driven and those restrained. Although some of the speculation may seem implausible, it is developed in a methodical manner that feels plausible.

We have a scale that goes up to or beyond "K" (which could be true if octaves were re-vamped in the future, perhaps introducing half tones), plants that sing (that seems plausible given holes and wind, however, these create music and read the music off one another, which is a huge step). Also, what kind of mutant is Jane? Maybe?    

Even though she's a human variant, she feels alien although her parentage brought her from Peru. Perhaps this is in such a distant future that science indeed feels strange. It's also interesting that she is said to cheat at cards. Perhaps this is meant to suggest that she somehow also cheats at life or some other endeavor, to make it interesting.

Elsewhere, Ballard argued for more sex and violence in the arts. It's interesting that they launched his career.

Larry Cohen, Maverick B-Movie Maven and his Six-Shooters

Larry Cohen (July 15, 1936 – March 23, 2019) wrote for TV and movies, with TV shows dominating his early career--mostly crime and cops but also an alien invasion show called The Invaders, which he described as The Body Snatchers about the Black List.

He moved into movies with an inauspicious debut Return of the Seven (a sequel to the classic Western, The Magnificent Seven). While that bombed with audiences and critics, later movies grew strange. Perhaps he was constrained by budgets, perhaps by an imagination formed by TV, but the ideas are often small. Most of his movies on IMDB fell around 6/10--with a few falling below. 

One movie Phone Booth was rather impressive because of its limited scope: The setting is a phone booth. An agent is trapped in a phone booth by a gunman. It is his highest rated, and I'd recommend it. Despite the limitations (or because of them), it feels like a movie of some ambition. If this had been his career, his motives would have been clear and traditional.

However, for most of his career, he wrote B-movies. They seemed to hearken back to the older B-movies. They were both serious and not. Certainly, there were no jokes, but the situations were over the top. 

One of these, a friend tipped me off to: The Stuff. Frankly, I'd never heard of any of Cohen's movies, ever. And you can see why. They aren't ambitious in a tradition way, yet confidently aimed at the small. In The Stuff, we have a yogurt-like substance found emerging from the ground near a mining facility. The material seems to take over people mentally and, eventually, bodily. 

My friend thought it was written in fear of yogurt which, after being in the country thirty years up until then, had taken America by storm after a commercial touted the possibility of longevity if one ate it (a history of Yogurt in America). To me, the movie was driven more by the SF impulse: industrial phony products mimicking the real thing since there were other yogurt products that were not attacked as the culprit, but just this problematic brand (I can't find the article, but there were questions in the press about products claiming to be yogurt, but were not). Although in an interview, Cohen seemed to suggest that my friend's theory was closer to the truth, I still like my interpretation better.

The absurd premise is small potatoes. That's not really the fascinating thing. The best part of the narrative is a guy who describes himself as an industrial saboteur (this also suggests my interpretation is better; Cohen may not have remembered fully what he was up to). What in the world is an industrial saboteur? Who hires him? Why? How does he get money?

The movie shows how he gets money: black mail and other nefarious means, which makes him an odd yet compelling figure.

In an interview, Cohen claimed not to be an SF or horror writer, yet he does use "Frank Herbert" as someone important at the FBI, and one movie It's Alive! gets its title from The Frankenstein SF-horror B-movie classic He's paying homage to the things he loves, consciously or not. 

He also pays homage to character actors. The protagonist in It's Alive! imitates the famous Western character actor, Walter Brennan. Moreover, Cohen hired a ton of actors on their way up or out, which added experience and actor recognition to all of his movies. He said he'd find out about actors looking for work and give them a job. A good chunk of his actors had plump acting pedigrees.

In an interview titled It's Alive! Cohen states:

"B-movies. God bless them. B-movies become A movies over the years. That's when they remake them. They take a million dollar movie and spend 100 million to remake it." 

Not sure how true that was for him, but it does show his passion for them. I actually formulated my ideas for Cohen and then found corroborating evidence in a handful of interviews. What he's doing is fairly transparent.

As far as patterns go, there's often a primary crime driving the narrative, and a past crime that drives or informs the protagonist and/or antagonist. As bad as his movies might be, they were entertaining and often displayed some technical writing brilliance, often in the protagonist, which is strange for B-movies. Usually, it's the bad guy or the monster that's the most powerful force, but here the protagonists outweighed the antagonists.

Cohen had a couple of movies become franchises: It's Alive! and Maniac Cop. The former had Bernard Herrmann as a composer, the latter starred Bruce Campbell. The film It's Alive! was going to be killed when new producers arrived, but three years later, new movie producers gave the movie a new release and it became an instant cult classic.

If you like good bad movies, or cult movies, Cohen's oeuvre might be something to explore. It's Alive! and The Stuff both place on a number of lists as ranking among the best B-movies. It's amazing he was able to build a lucrative career writing these.

Review: The King's Daughter

 Almost two and half years ago, I ended a review of Vonda N. McIntyre's The Moon and the Sun, writing about the "lost" movie:

"The movie, starring Pierce Brosnan, has been filmed but remains unreleased pending special effects, four years later.

Maybe something went wrong elsewhere, but you'd think they'd try to recoup some financial losses by releasing it as straight-to-video, or have a limited release first. Surely, book fans would flock."

 The movie is now released and has grossed about a million so far in the first week (#10). 

Here's a clip of a scene paired with the trailer:

The trailer doesn't give a good sense of the story, which is mirrored in this strange review from The Guardian, which says the movie's good--I would agree--but obsesses over the problem of the title. However, the reviewer may not have pondered long enough. The title is rather thematically potent, and in a few other regards.

The problem of the trailer and the review may be the movie's failing to nail its identity at the start. The movie opens as a story book, which would be useful as a children's story, a comedy, or a fairy tale. The closest the movie approaches is the lattermost, but the focus isn't on a fairy tale nature. Perhaps it would have been better done without the storybook and skipped straight to the daughter's arrival in the castle. Or perhaps better still, would be to establish the previous life and her desire to exit that life. A leisurely opening would have worked fine--or at least better. Perhaps they hadn't enough film footage for it to flow.

The main body of the film is solid, tightly woven and seems quite aware that it is a historical fantasy with strong elements of romance--perhaps "love" is the better operative word, in a broader sense than romance that only concerns a couple. 

Without the opening, I'd have said the movie deserved an 8 or so out of 10. Solid entertainment with some thought.

The opening should only drop the movie to a seven, not to a five, which is where it is at the moment, unfortunately, but people were probably confused about what kind of movie they were seeing. I had the advantage, having read the book first. Hopefully, the numbers go up as it progresses. 

It should be popular with the female type holding some measure of history, court, and adventure. A good date or family movie? Maybe go buy popcorn while the storybook unfolds.

The director, Sean McNamara, talks about the movie here:

Celebrating the life and works of David Farland / Dave Wolverton (links to writing advice, reviews, and a tribute)

This video tribute broke me up:

  

* * *

When Dave Wolverton passed away, I read every tribute every writer wrote. So many felt personally touched by this nearly omnipresent mentor. It wasn't just a handful that he befriended to appear magnanimous, but everyone who chose to learn from him.

I must have quoted Dave or directed traffic to his blog at least three dozen times. Most of those links appear to be dead. There are probably two or three books to be made out of the abundant advice he gave writers. Here are a few of my favorite books of his on writing that seem invaluable to me:

Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing 

and 

Million Dollar Outlines

When it comes to writing, the man was a mad genius who not only honed his own craft but catapulted others to the bestseller lists.

* * *

Although the main links are gone, you can get the gist to a few of these that I wrestled with (on reviews and blurbs -- I still need to ponder blurbs further. I should be more useful to writers who have done well.)

Here I wrestled with his ideas on editing. I should have included the video back then, so I'll do so here:

* * *

Here's a list of literary works of his I reviewed (I still haven't read Runelords, an error I must correct. I was hoping to interview him here when his last book came out):

MUST READS (works that enchanted me)

"After a Lean Winter" (If you read nothing else by Wolverton, read this--a classic.)

The Golden Queen

GOOD BOOKS (I loved the narrator's voice in Ravenspell):

Ravenspell Book 1: Of Mice and Magic 

Nightingale (Recommended for those who loved Steven Gould's Jumper) 

22 Tales (an overdue collection of his short work although it disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared)

* * *

We met a few times in person, and I took a few online classes with him. I forget all that he said, but whatever you see in videos, that's what we saw. His kindness seemed not to be a public performance but the real thing.

He came in and sat with John Campbell and I as we ate sloppy, animal-style fries and burgers at In 'N' Out. We were discussing other cultures.

Later, Dave and I talked and walked to another restaurant and we discussed how he wanted to take his time to get his last Runelords novel right. He mentioned Tolkien and the importance of taking your time: Do we want fast books or books that readers will remember us by?

Bon voyage, Mr. Wolverton. May the latest Runelords be your crowning achievements. Whatever happens, you were one of the greats, in so many ways. Thank you for sharing your life and wisdom.

The Art of Golden Queen by David Farland / Dave Wolverton

Dave Wolverton passed away on January 14, 2022. This is just a tribute to one of my favorite novels of his. 

I recently commented on what I think was one my favorite stories, "After a Lean Winter," and what made it so brilliant.

The Golden Queen is a science fantasy. It would be easy for a long-time reader of fantasy just to accept this as a somewhat traditional fantasy with some of the usual oddities such as a talking bear, but then we have two moons. The novel opens this way

"Veriasse could taste the scent of vanquishers in the crsip mountain air. Beneath the sweaty odor of the horses, lying deep below the aroma of pine needles and leaf mold, he could barely detect the acrid scent of dronon vanquisher's stomach acids. This was the third time he had caught that scent in as many days, but this time it was closer than in the past."

Really, this could go either way in reading it: fantasy or science fiction. But the heavy emphasis on scents has a distinct odor of biology. Straddling the divide between science and fantasy creates a beautiful friction, a paradox of sorts, a broad palette of samples to taste. We inhabit two genres simultaneously. Just when you settle into the fantasy of it, the text will either imply or call up the science of what's happening.

But the most powerful aspect is the characters themselves. And the story takes off in the inn in Clere, the characters giving one another a hard time in a playful manner (notice how the barbs fly off at everyone, sometimes multiple people at once):

"Nooo, no!" Father Heany threw up his hands as if to ward off a blow. "You can't go trying to unload your ugly niece onto the boy," the priest said. "That would be a sin. She's a nice enough girl, but with those buck teeth--"

"You don't say!" Seamus frowned in mock horror. "You daren't talk about my niece that way."

"I will," the priest said. "God agrees with me on this point, I'm sure. The girl has tusks as dangerous as any wild boar's. Now, if Gallen is looking for a nice young woman, I'm sure others could  be found."

Maggie got up from her churn. The cream had hardened to butter, and she could no longer turn the crank. Her face and arms were covered with perspiration. Gallen figured it must be midnight, yet she'd been working since before sunrise. She stood wearily, put a heavy log into the fire, then sat at a nearby table with a sigh that said, "Ah, to hell with it."

"Well, there is Maggie here," Seamus said with a wink, and Gallen saw that he'd been planning this all along. With Gallen and Maggie sitting so close together, it was a perfect opportunity to torment them both. No one in town could have missed the glances they exchanged, and Gallen had just about decided that Maggie was the one for him. "Now, Maggie has it all--she has her wit, she's a charmer, and she works as hard as three people."

Maggie also gives Gallen a hard time of it, too. However, the playfulness gets challenged when the beautiful Golden Queen herself arrives to send our heroes off on a journey, looking for a guide or an armed escort who can also defend. However, though Gallen shows himself worthy as a guide, he's rebuffed when he inquires about her name. An act not lost on Maggie.

Forgive me. I love Orrick the bear, too, but I can be less specific about that. Perhaps it is just our innate desire to befriend animals, but Farland does seem to capture some of the beariness of Orrick in a few deft gestures such as his voracious appetite, lapping milk from a bowl, and mysterious behavior like this: 

"God be with you, for I shall not," the bear said.... Gallen shivered at the sound of Orick's cryptic farewell.

There's much to love. It's almost as wonderful as knowing the man himself.

Cultural Ephemera: Xanadu

 A friend recommended this movie as of possible interest though the story, he admitted, was bad. I do like weird stories, true--making sense of strange things in life, no matter how odd--but less fond of bad weird stories.

I didn't see the whole but whatever clips I could find. However, I was interested, interested that this was made at all (and how). 

For clarity, by "ephemera" I mean things that take the world by storm for a brief period of time then evaporate, almost without trace.

Xanadu would seems to both fit and fail that definition. As a movie, it barely broke even. As a soundtrack, though, it had five songs chart on the Top 40 and the album went platinum. The stars were huge: Gene Kelly was a major star to pull in the older generations while Olivia Newton-John and Michael Beck had just come off major successes. On other other hand, it pretty much stunted their acting careers. Meanwhile, the musicians and much of the film crew had major careers that continued beyond the film, which wouldn't fit. But the writers and director really never hit it out of the park, afterwards, although the director found more success when he focused on stories with a nonfictional frame. 

Perhaps it could classify as a cult film as it spawned a hit Broadway musical a quarter century later (this Wiki article makes it sound like they were able to make a plausibly good story out of the raw materials), and a killer who thought.he was guided by it.

The main reason I'm calling it ephemera, though, is the treatment: roller skates and rainbow color schemes. It mashes up classical Greek culture with Romantic Xanadu but without understanding either culture, so that it's alien to both. Yes, we have Gene Kelly but not in a way that utilizes him well. We have two generations represented here, but neither seem realistically depicted.  

It's as if aliens (or someone from the present or future with no understanding of the past) were given a time machine to kidnap talented music and dance and music video people from the past and told them to update the musical with a laundry list of things that once was popular from two different eras, to shake well and pour into a story. "Okay," the alien movie moguls said, "we want modernized versions of older clothing styles with dancing from Gene Kelly, music and weirdness for the younger Star-Wars set, cowboy outfits for those whose home is on the range, and cartoons for the kiddies. Famous music makers will help us sell the accompanying soundtrack. A recipe for million dollar industry!" 

This is what you'd get. Here's the identifying clip that sort of outlines the movie's presumed modus operanadi:

It's almost a parody of the eras it's trying to reach, past and present--and parody of basic storytelling. It doesn't seem to belong to any time period.

 

Yet there is so something visually and auditorily fascinating--not to mention the other-woldly perspective. The only way to interpret the movie that makes sense is as a music video that isn't trying to make sense of the story but of the music. The logical flow resolves as a music video would. 

 

Proof? See the last moments of the film, which would only work in a music video. Music videos often have compressed moments at the beginning and end which try to make sense of the music. This works just like one of those (cued up for you although you can rewind to watch the glitzy cowboy routine to get how it tried to rope in the rural and country crowd):

The only problem with this theory is the film occurred just before MTV. But maybe it was trying to ride the same cusp that MTV was riding. It sounds like music videos got their start in 1970s Australia (where Newton-John is from), and this has the same feel.

 

As such, the music-video movie is somewhat innovative--perhaps too innovative, Yet it had a huge musical impact and perhaps inspired the musical video industry. If you consider the project as having multiple revenue streams including Broadway musical parody (you can sense the mockery in the promotional poster above), it's hard to say it's a failure. No doubt, all of the above, the murders, and the Golden Raspberries (started in part because of the film) helped create the film's cult status.

 

However, you would have to pay me handsomely to watch the whole thing.