People are pointing at the sky and asking what that object is.
It’s still supposed to rain…but the sun is out.
I got Jane to the chiropractor Monday, —our favorite latte stand had a new employee who had to be told to put a hot-holder on the cups; and then didn’t fasten Jane’s lid properly on her chai. I’m leaving Hwy2 and exiting the curve on the bridge that leads onto the Pullman road, when Jane starts screaming as one does when scalding liquid is dumped into one’s lap—and I had no clue. She has occasional muscle spasms in one hand, a known condition, which are quite painful, but she finally got out the info, in a few seconds, that she had chai in her lap, and I was able to get to the shoulder and let her get out and cool down.
Well, her seat is soaked. And she’s not happy. She decided to sit in the back seat, which she did, and I opened the moonroof, because it’s claustrophobic back there; but occasion rain counseled we close it. Plus I was trying to make time because of the delay, and I had to shout to be heard. It was a strange ride down.
Jane had a successful adjustment while I went down to the grocery and bought a towel for the seat on return journey. She will now have her shoulder in the shoulder brace. But I began having shoulder spasms of my own, such misery I gave up and took prescription meds to try to stop it…dunno why it happened, but I didn’t see the doc; maybe I should’ve.
Our favorite hamburger joint was indeed open. It was shut for repairs last week. So that was good: I had a burger and didn’t have to cook. And Jane was on no-food because she has a pre-appointment blood test: she’s going back to the endocrinologist, too. And is doing basically pretty much better. I slept until 6.
She’s in the bathroom trying to put together a Chinese-made bargain mailbox we got that didn’t fit where our box is, and we’ve decided to use it to hold fishfood outside, but in the meanwhile I probably threw away the little packet of screws that went with it: if I’m cleaning without my glasses it’s a pain, because I can’t see what’s at counter level, and if I wear my glasses I can’t see what’s at floor level. So wherever they went, it was a small packet, could have gotten in with papers, and there’s no knowing where it did go.
So…situation normal around here. At least Jane didn’t take any injury she’s admitting to re the chai incident and her neck seems better.
Ummm … multi-focal lenses? I swear by them, myself although I have a special pair for the computer with just the reading prescription in them.
I have a torque in my vision: you would have to do a kind of semi spiral to describe how my eyes behave at various ranges, with each other and individually: it would require an extra-dimensional grinding of the lens to let me wear bifocals. The ‘my special eyes’ lament from the man on the commercial is my theme song. Best I can come up with is to correct my better reading eye for fulltime reading and let the better distance eye handle long distance, then put on glasses that correct the distance eye to reading and handle the astigmatism in the reading eye for fulltime reading. It’s such a pain, and I’m real close to needing a contact for distance in the distance eye. But not there yet.
It’s personally embarrassing when all of a sudden (I’m sure due to the wandering astigmatism) I look at somebody oddly and can’t recognize them, quite…not really familiar people, of course, but convention-goers whose name I should know. It’s so upsetting…
Poor Jane, she seems like such a nice person. Can’t help me think of that old song from Hee Haw.
http://www.televisiontunes.com/Hee_Haw_-_Gloom_Despair_and_Agony_On_Me.html
Ouch! I hope Jane soon recovers.
My PT cured my bad shoulder by making me do Ys and Ts. http://magazine.stack.com/Exercises/3208/Physioball_Shoulder_Stability_Circuit_Y_T_W_L.aspx
Your Foreigner series made SF Signal’s “underrated trilogy” list. http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/06/mind-meld-what-science-fiction-series-is-underrated/
Heavens! there’s a lot of my favourites there. Octavia Butler’s “Lilith’s Brood”, the Sector General Novels from James White, James Blish Cities in Flight, Kristine Smith with Jani Killian’s Series, Julian May’s works. Missing were Lee and Miller’s Liaden works, Joan Vinge’s series that starts with the Summer Queen, and many more.
The general sag in publisher finance and pressure from on high (in the oil company that owns the house) means they’re no longer supporting many of these works. The US tax situation doesn’t let them keep the books in print. The entire body of work in science fiction is in serious danger: the links that used to guide a novice sf reader from Norton to Heinlein to more current works are all broken, and many people come in with a background in current movies, which means they don’t get the core concepts—you say FTL and they say, “huh?”
OUCH! Scalds are the worst kinds of burns. I hope there was no blistering or lasting damage.
It sounds like you need a visit for adjustment yourself, Nand CJ. Caregivers have to take care of themselves! 😉
I have a story about Leigh Brackett and her Skaith series mentioned in the SFSignal article. In 1976 on a Friday I went to a book store in the Antelope Valley in that she CA and found Leigh Brackett doing a signing of her 3rd book in the Skaith series. Well of course I bought her latest novel and got her to sign my copy. At that point I found out she was coming back the next day to continue the signing. So with her permission I also came back the next day and got her to sign the rest of my collection of her books. The kind person that Leigh was she invited me over to her and Edmond Hamilton’s house for coffee and cookies. She did tell me that Edmond had been unwell so I should only bring 1 nook of his for him to autograph. So later on that week I had coffee and cookies with Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton in their house. It was a wonderful visit and I still have my signed copy of Battle for the Stars by EH. I still have at least 7 of Leigh Bracketts signed books 34 years later.
I was very fond of Leigh Brackett. I met her late in life—we were on no few panels together, and somewhat hung out together at awards banquets, and then she was gone. She’s one I wished I’d known for years.
Wonderful memory of Leigh Brackett. I read An SFBC edition of The Book of Skaith that totally grabbed me. Everything I read by or about her showed a kind, generous lady.
I’m surprised MA Foster isn’t on the list with the Ler books.
Poor Jane seems to be on a roll, when things get back to the
level of less disastrous she won’t know how to act. Probably
just the consequences of choosing an action filled life of
adventure (SF writer).
So what is the publisher plan ? Put most of it out of print
and kill the possibility of staying in business. The ability
to attract new readers drops way off with limited runs of
less than stellar works (I’m practicing diplomacy).
Amazon may be a good business model for Amazon, I’m not so
sure it is the best way to promote books to a new audience.
The Opera seems to have noticed after doing some polling
that their audience gets a year older every year. Assuming
that people will always watch Operas in the face of that
data is truly ridiculous. I hope the europeans have sense
enough to put some performances on DVD, Bluray or whatever
the latest media is because deciding that Opera has to be
live is sure to make it dead.
SF is supposed to be the cutting edge of humanity, cons
full of those not afraid to speculate, angst, drama and
personality clashes amidst the fans,self publishing and
wanting to become like Jane and CJ with lives full of
adventures. But I read in some of the zines that they
don’t bother to read the stuff anymore.
That I do not understand, I don’t read it all like I used
to but I never stopped looking for new stuff.
Read my first MA Foster book a couple months back. The Warriors of Dawn. Great writer.
I think one of the biggest problems with ‘they don’t bother to read the stuff anymore’ is that what is getting out there in paper print is not what this audience wants, and the field has lost the businessman fan who had a copy of Heinlein in his briefcase.
What made sf was a connected community of communicating fans (‘zines, mimeographed), conventions (where real people met—and still do) to discuss not games, not movies, but books, and science, and ideas, and concepts. You cannot hold the community together on movie tie-in books and cookie-cutter fantasy. It takes publishers and editors with the power to take risks—nobody dares—and it takes…
..well, we do have the internet. And a number of writers who are trying to get back in touch, get the backlist back out, pry rights out of the cold dead hands of companies that aren’t willing to publish, and unite readers who want the Good Stuff back. Plus write NEW things with old-fashioned imagination and talent…things the publishing industry isn’t doing right now.
For as long as I can remember self publishing was through the vanity presses. I think that is changing with the advent of the net. This may be the future for new writers. There will be a lot of sludge but as Theodore Sturgeon said “Ninety percent of science fiction is crap. But then, 90% of everything is crap.” (My percentage may be wrong!) Something may already exist, but I don’t see why there can’t be on line sites much like the one where I will be setting up my selling space…..we pay nothing to join, a small amount to post each item and a small commission when an item sells…..every member I’ve spoken or communicated with has been *very* happy with the whole enterprise. 😆
Heard on NPR last year about something that is going to change the world, at least the publishing world.
Can’t remember the name of it, So here is the description. It’s a machine that can print you a book in about 20min. It has a hard drive that can store 1,000’s of books. The idea is that you go up and basically select what you want like a vending machine or jukebox, and it prints a soft cover version of it and spits it out at you.
The idea, is the a seller can buy the rights to rare and out of print books that are in low demand for those that want them.
Also, if you are an aspiring writer that wants to see yourself in print. You can bring in a disk and receive a professional looking copy at a reasonable rate.
Think there are only six of them out there right now, one in the states. They cost over a million apiece, so they definitely won’t be popping up on every street corner.
But with all the electronic forms of book out there, I don’t see it catching on.
As an archaeologist and writer, one of my biggest nightmares is that one day we will get so good at recycling and using non-printed media, that we will be destroying the past for future generations by leaving little to nothing behind.
I’ve already written a short story about that concept. Has the “Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it theme.”
There’s one further scary danger: we get hit with an electronic ‘pulse’ that takes down every computer on the planet—and wipes all the e-storage. One hiccup from the sun and we could be back in the middle ages, in that scenario. I have NO objection to people making print copies of these files.
Here is a very scary note on EMP(electro-magnetic pulse). You have hit on the Achilles heal of our military. GPS, drones, communications, are all very easy to take out with EMP. The Israeli’s used it to great effect by electrifying telephone lines during the 7-day war in the 70’s.
The moral is, we rely way to much on electronics and computers.
If you know what you are doing, you can bring down a multi-million dollar aircraft with a good antenna and a portable generator by scrambling it’s guidance and controls. Or a pocket full of magnetized ball bearings and a sling shot, but that’s another story.
I’m pretty sure that many electronics are more robust than you might think. A well-placed EMP, or a solar hiccup, could really mess us up for a while, but many metal computer towers could act as their own Faraday cage as long as they weren’t online at the time. I’m not sure what effect an EMP might have on data stored on a flash drive either, and that would be easy-peasy to insulate externally.
There’s a chapter in Lucifer’s Hammer about storing books in an old septic tank for the coming Apocalypse, but I don’t think we really need to go that far. Unless someone knows of an imminent comet strike 😀
Our model is simple: we do the work ourselves: we do our own covers and conversion, and Closed Circle doesn’t even have a bank account: absolutely all the proceeds go straight to the writers, who are responsible for it…but many other models are possible.
What I would like to see is one/some of the surviving experienced professional editors set up shop, take submissions, charge for editing, reject what isn’t ready, publish what is, and create a ‘brand name’ site where new writers could have that seal of professional approval, and where readers could go to get the new guys. We’re not editors: we’re writers, and we write, which is what we do best—besides that we are doing all we can: our dance card is way full. But there are people out there who do have that skill.
Amen!
Well that’s already started. Take Murder in the Gunroom by H. Beam Piper. It was first published in 1950’s and then I think Old Earth did a small reprint in the 90′ but in the last 3 years Amazon shows at least 3 different small press printers have it available. Of course it’s been out of copyright for years.
One hopes the scalds on Jane’s hand and lap were first degree or less. One also hopes you have had a chance to go back to your favorite latte place, speak quietly with the manager/owner, and let them know you will File Intent on this new employee if you have to remind them of the hot holder and if the lids pop off for no reason. Barring Filing Intent, the threat of going to another place is certainly viable.
They have the best chai in town and the regular barristas are sweethearts. This gal was sweet, but clueless and left solo at that hour, which she was not ready for. She needs a lot more training.
Still, you do want to go talk to the manager. They could be looking at a large law suit if this happened to less-understanding people, and you may be able to get some sort of compensation for the accident. Reasonable medical bills, or at least free chai for some time.
We should. I don’t want to get the kid fired, but she needs some instruction.
There are many instances in SF (and mundane fiction) about future technology being incomprehensible to discoverers. My favorite has to be the HeeChee fans. Technology sufficiently advanced………..etc. I *don’t* want descendent/discoverers to view our society as *magic* thanks. 😉
Being the original swamp yankee, and tight to the max, I make my own chai. Most available in shops is way too sweet. I use 5 spice powder and cinnamon with agave with a strong black tea (any sweetener can be used)…..let it sit overnight and pour off the chai when it has settled. I usually make about a quart at a time, mix it with milk for hot, cold, frozen ‘frappachinno’. It’s so tasty that I added some vinegar and soy to some and marinated shrimp in it…..then grilled. 😆
CJ, I believe you’d be doing the kid a favor by telling the manager that 1) you’re concerned that she wasn’t properly trained. 2) she was left alone at the time, and 3) she’s very nice, but needs more instruction. It’s possible she was just flustered over being alone. I have been there, and have been in some situations that were extremely embarrassing to me, until the person who thought I knew what I was doing found out that, “OOOPS, they made an assumption.” In this case, I was on a Navy warship, I had been ordered to pass orders over a radio circuit to various ships, including at least one Royal Dutch Navy warship. The officer who gave me the order did not know that I had never been in the situation that I had been placed, so when he came back from the bridge, he was very apologetic, passed the correct orders, and then helped me with learning the proper way to do it. I got much better, but without his assistance, I was just a prime target for being laughed at, not a good thing for a Staff Communications Officer.
Good idea. Praise AND correct.
Back to the print on demand technology, if I may. I pointed out Closed Circle and your model to a Seattle author who’s getting her own backlist rights reverted. She’s (not as internet savvy and) exploring getting her backlist and a new novel printed on demand. Third Place books in Lake Forest Park (Seattle) has one of the POD machines, called an Expresso. I’ll keep you posted on her progress.
I agree – once sff publishing just became “media” it seems like our choices diminished radically. For example, I do loves me some urban fantasy. And chocolate cake. But either one, as a steady diet, leaves much to be desired.
The inventory rules have erased the old “go to the bookstore and browse” because it’s so heavy on bestsellers, some middle tier, and it’s all gone the next month anyway. I get my publishing news off the internet because I can’t count on going to a bookstore to see what’s new. It’s gotten to the point where I buy books that are series novels as they’re published, even when I want to wait for the entire series to read it, because the first or second book in a trilogy is often unavailable by the time I want it.
It’s not the lawyers, it’s the beancounters who’re going to do us all in. . .
Sorry. Walking to school both ways up a mountain in snow past my hips, I know. Hopping off ranty rant soapbox now.
One of my favorite activites as a youthling was to go to the mall and browse the bookstores, of which there were three at the time — Waldenbooks, B. Dalton (my personal favorite) and Coles. That was where I discovered new authors in the paperbacks, including a few favorites what would be doomed to obscurity now. All three stores are either closed now, or have been reduced to shadows of their former selves.
Now, if I go to Borders, I see rack after rack of vampires, series from the latest hot authors, electronic media tie-ins, and very little new stuff. It’s been several years since I discovered a new author by browsing at a bookstore, and it’s hard to browse Amazon. That is the thing that is being killed by large chains and media consolidation — the thrill of discovery. Sometimes I get a recommendation from a trade magazine like PW, or from a trusted blog or friend, but even the authors I might like to find are lost in the electronic slush pile of the Internet these days.
Oh and, ‘One more thing…’ to paraphrase Columbo, this is one of the reasons LIBRARIES are important. We don’t just get the best sellers, we give you a chance to find things that wouldn’t be shoved in your face by a marketing campaign, and we keep them around for more than 6 months.
Bitter much ? 😛
I stay a member of the Science Fiction Book Club and the Quality Paperback Book Club specifically so they can introduce me to authors and books I’d never have found out about otherwise. They’re selling a lot of the popular books, of course, but they also reissue some older stuff I’d never heard of before. And I make them send me the paper catalogs so I can browse without having to stare at That Other Glowing Box (as I’m sure my cat thinks of it).
I’m “re”discovering so much Golden Age (and earlier) stuff through Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks and Munseys.
Used to be a member of the Science Fiction Book Club, but they dropped me for some reason a few years ago and I never bothered exploring why, but then I was pretty poor at the time, so it was probably for the best. I keep toying with signing back up, but haven’t yet.
As for libraries, I love ’em! When I lived in Seattle, I just about lived in the library downtown, especially after the remodel. My current home, a little town in South Florida called Jupiter, has a particularly piddly, tiny library and they’re not great about requesting books from other branches. So I’m depending on free ebooks from the above mentioned three.
My greatly-missed aunt lived in Jupiter (actually Jupiter Beach). AFAIK, it’s not exactly a retirement community, but there are a good proportion of seniors there. I’m surprised they haven’t agitated for a better library. Our seniors are all over our library like white on rice, and they aren’t shy about what they want and need!