I got a little bit of writing done this afternoon, but most of the day has been spent with selecting and pricing many of the books and items I plan to take to the con. It's been a long time since I played "dealer." Or as I prefer, "huckster." I'd forgotten how much work it can be to get it all together. It'll be even more work to load everything into the car, then get it into the hotel and set up. I hope it will be worth the effort. If nothing else, since dealers at Contraception work out of their rooms and everybody's on the same floor, I hope it will be a large party. I do plan to entice people to the room by serving hard liquor. Muhahahaha!

And I haven't even boxed up any of my own books. Yet.

Now I'm exhausted and heading to bed for a full day of sleep. See some of you this weekend.

Tags: booksigning, contraception, conventions, dealers, science fiction
Current Location: The Institute for Really Unusual Research

I've been totally domestic today. I've not only vacuumed the carpet, I've shampooed and steam-cleaned it. From the vacuuming alone I got five cannisters of mostly cat hair out of the carpet. No wonder I'm suffering a major allergy attack tonight! I shouldn't have disturbed it all. Just kidding - it had to be done, and the carpet looks a lot better.

I've spent the evening getting ready for Contraception, the local "adults only" convention. I retired last year after serving as the perrenial emcee, and I'm looking forward to just enjoying the convention. Except "enjoying the convention" means that I'm going as a dealer this year. So I've been getting cool books, including my own, and other marketable stuff together. I hate pricing, though.

Contraception is a "theme" con, and this year's theme is "Las Vegas." Among other things, they have a door-decorating contest. Decorate your hotel room door according to the theme and you ... yes, you! ... may win a cheesy prize and ribbon. People compete like mad for the things. Diana has decided to participate this year. However, since we expect lots of people to go with the "casino" angle, she's decided to emphasize another aspect of Las Vegas -- Adult novelty stores. She's got almost everything together already, but she doesn't have an inflatable rubber doll. When I pointed that out, her eyes lit up. Hmmmm....

I hope to see some of you there!

Tags: contraception, conventions, dealers
Current Location: The Institute for Really Unusual Research

Despite the terrible weather here, Ron and I climbed into Archer 635 Kilo Charlie at 9:30 this morning and flew through rain and fog and clouds to Hutchison, KS. It was only about 44 degrees at take-off time, and Ron is a skilled IFR pilot. That's instrument flight rules, for the unknowledgeable out there. The instruments are all you have to tell you where you are, the attitude of the plane, etc. It was a little harrowing, but then I love edgy adventure.

The real "edge" however, came after we exited the Cosmosphere. In just under two hours while we were inside, the temperature fell twelve degrees. The rain was much heavier, and we both thought for a short time that it was sleeting. The chilly wind had turned bitter. At the Wells Airport FBO we paid for re-fueling, quickly checked weather.dom and filed new flight plans. If we couldn't make it back to Kansas City, we were determined to make it to Wichita.

Ground visibility at the airport was regulation minimum. We thought for a moment that we'd turned onto the wrong runway, and there was a moment of panic. The tower quickly assured us that we were on the correct one and apologized for admittedly confusing runway signs. Duh. But we took off and immediately began watching the wings for any signs of icing. The "ceiling" was very low, and at about 1500 feet, the world essentially vanished.

I wasn't nervous or afraid. Ron's a terrific pilot, and a couple of times I started to doze off in the second seat. Each time, we hit some pocket of "oh fuck!" turbulence that bounced me awake again.

I would like to spend more time at the Cosmosphere someday. However, I found much of it depressing and sad. It lays out the history of space flight, beginning basically with Hitler's "Vengeance Weapons" programs - the rocket projects that resulted in the V-1 "buzz bombs" and the farm more powerful V-2 rockets, as well as the messerschmidtt "Komet." From that opening point, the museum is much less a tribute to scientific accomplishment, curious inquiry, and the ineffable spirit of man -- it's rather a tribute, time-line by time-line, to war and the human compulsion to destroy. In its own way, the Cosmosphere is every bit as depressing at Kansas City's larger World War I Museum.

Add to that the fact that the Cosmosphere may be the darkest museum I've ever visited with the darkness punctuated by very harsh overhead focus lights. With almost every display behind glass, it was impossible to get decent digital camera shots.

Still, I would go back, maybe with a pocketful of anti-depressants. I learned a great deal and came away with several ideas for stories, and it was interesting to see the numbers of families with very small children in tow.

But if we go back again, hopefully we'll fly in better weather.

Tags: cosmosphere, space travel
Current Location: The Institute for Really Unusual Research

One of my very oldest friends in fandom passed away late tonight after a lengthy battle with cancer. John Taylor was a fixture in the Kansas City fan community. I met him first briefly (I think) at MidAmerica-con in 1971. That was Kansas City's first science fiction convention. I saw him ocassionally after that at Hobbit House, KC's only-ever science fiction & fantasy specialty store, which he and his wife, Pat, owned It was a meeting place for many wonderful sf people. Diana and I made it a point to visit Hobbit House everytime we came down from Maryville where we were going to college into Kansas City. We enjoyed John's witty company at Kansas City's only world science fiction convention in 1976. He was one of the key organizers and committee members of that event. And when we finally moved back to Kansas City that same year we promptly joined the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society, which was meeting regularly at John and Pat Taylor's home. Some of the very best club meetings were held in that house on Jefferson Street in those days. We were a small club, but we were all close.



I took the photo above in 1976 at I-con in Iowa City. In those days, John and Pat, Diana and I, sometimes with others along, traveled to a lot of conventions together, and almost every year to Mini-Con in Minneapolis. Mini-con was a terrific convention, and we had as much fun on the road as we did at the con. But that damned van broke down every fucking year, or had a flat, and I generally wound up fixing it. It didn't matter; it was part of the experience.

We attended many conventions with John and Pat and attended many conventions at which they were present. Once, when Diana and I were broke kids, John and Pat offered us the privacy of the walk-in closet in their hotel room to sleep for the weekend. When seventeen of us shared a single hotel room in Columbia, John and Pat were there. (John Kessel slept in the bathtub.) The Taylors hosted many wonderful thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for fans who had nowhere else to go.



Many years and many stories went by. John and Pat eventually had a beautiful daughter, Miranda. And Pat had a series of incapacitating strokes. With an admirable devotion, John took meticulous care of Pat until she finally passed a few years ago. And when he finally had time for himself, cancer struck.



The picture above shows John sitting next to Pat. However, In the last weeks of his life, John married once more to longtime Kansas City fan, Tina Black. Tina, a totally amazing person, has been John's constant companion and care-giver throughout his ordeal, and she was at his bedside tonight at the end.

John was the longest continuous member of the Kansas City Science Fiction Society. Oddly, as I poured through the pages of the Mid-American Fan Photo Archive, I was struck by how few photos of John are there. A constant fixture of KC fandom, he never really seemed to seek the spotlight, yet he was always there, a presence. He served several times as Director of KaCSFFS, chaired several conventions, handled programming ... whatever was needed, John was there.

We hadn't been exactly close in the last few years, but we always spoke at club meetings and conventions. Because of my own experience with cancer, perhaps I didn't handle the news of his illness as well as I might have. But when we called Tina at the hospital a couple of nights ago to ask if they needed anything, she said, "John like Little Debbie's Swiss Rolls; it's about all I can get him to eat." I knew how difficult eating thorugh chemotherapy can be, and I was very happy to pick up a box and deliver them. When we called tonight from the grocery store, we knew from Tina's voice that the end was near.

And now he's gone, at peace at last. And the world seems just a little bit darker.



John served as co-chair, along with Margene Murray-Bahm, of ConQuest 38.

Tags: conquest, fandom, john taylor, kansas city science fiction & fantasy so
Current Location: The Institute for Really Unusual Research

I got word last night that I'd sold another story.  This one's based on one of the oldest, longest-running comic characters in the world -- The Phantom.  The story is called "Night Visitor to Bangalla," and will appear in an anthology called GUARDIAN OF THE EASTERN LIGHT from Moonstone Books.

The SyFy Channel has an upcoming PHANTOM television mini-series.  Unfortunately, it changes the storyline, and ditches the original costume, replacing it with something that looks, well, just awful.  I'll see if I can track down the trailer and post that, too.

Tags: the phantom, writing
Current Location: The Institute for Really Unusual Research

I used to be a voracious reader, but these days I start a lot more books than I finish.  Last night was kind of a rare event.  I was culling my book collection, getting ready to part with some things that I had no interest in reading a second time or even some books that I'd picked up in an apparent bookaholic stupor and never gotten around to reading.  One of those book that fall into the latter category was a "modern" James Bond novel, NEVER DREAM OF DYING, written by Chicago writer Raymond Benson.

I've read all the original Ian Fleming BOND books, of course.  They were required reading for my age group when I was a kid.  After Fleming died, I even read a couple of the John Gardner BOND books, which were interesting and competently written.  But maybe I'd just outgrown the whole BOND phenomenon by then.  Gardner's books just didn't sing to me.

Enter Raymond Benson.  How or why, I haven't a clue.  How he managed to assume the mantle of Ian Fleming, I can't guess.  NEVER DREAM OF DYING was released in 2001, and since then, he's written a handful of further BOND adventures.  And I have two confessions to make.  First, I read the novel cover to cover in one sitting.  I don't do that  very often anymore.  But it was sufficiently compelling to keep me turning the pages.  Second, it was compelling in the way that watching a train wreck is compelling.  Benson has been too heavily influenced by the movies, so we get the movie version of Bond in his novel - the wise-cracking, globe-hopping Bond.  But this Bond's wise-cracks are not particularly clever, and Benson appears to lack the the descriptive power to make the globe-hopping interesting. 

This is not the edgy Bond that i remember from the Fleming books.  And granted, I may just be remembering them wrong.  A lot of years have gone by.  But this cardboard Benson-Bond isn't the character that I remember.  He's flat, although Benson tries to portray him as inwardly sensitive.  The rest of the characters are less than cardboard.  There's the incredibly beautiful girl; the secret organization -- the "Union" this time -- a mysterious Blofeld-style villain called "Le Gerand;" and the brutal henchman who does most of the dirty work.  We've seen them all before.  They're cookie cutter props for this Bond to move around.

And still, I read every page.  It's had me scratching my head all day.  The book still goes in the culling pile.  


 

Tags: booksigning, james bond, writing
Current Location: The Institute for Really Unusual Research

I've been spending more and more time during my recovery in Buddhist study and meditation, and one of my biggest frustrations is the apparent lack of a -definitive- interpretation of Lao Tsu's TAO TE CHING.  I own four versions of this text, and every single one is different.  The themes of the individual verses are generally similar, but the textual matter -- the words and lines -- are presented with maddening variation.  I'm no newcomer to Buddhism, and the TAO TE CHING is not the only text to suffer in this manner as interpreters - especially Western interpreters - take wide latitude with the subject matter.

Far and away, one of the most beautiful books in my considerable collection is a translation by James Legge, completed and presented to the Britist Royal Society in 1891.  It translates the 81 books of the TAO into -- wait for it -- rhyming couplets.  Worse, it attempts to lay a Christian message over the verses.  It is an abominable translation, however, the book is filled with page after page of beautiful Japanese and Chinese artwork.  So I treasure it.

The situation with my left arm prevents me from further martial arts training for the foreseeable future.  However, last night, as I meditated on the message of Book Six, I found myself visualizing the five Heian kata as I silently recited the eight lines of the text.

      The spirit of life
       never dies

      It is the infinite gateway
      to mysteries within mysteries
 
      The seed inside the yin,
       the spark inside the yang

       Endlessly elusive,
       Eternally available

The contradictions arising from this continue to fascinate me.  Timing the the aggressive movements of karate kata to the calming lines of the text in my mind, visualizing the blending while remaining physically still and at rest.  Zen and zazen simultaneously in a weird way.   

But I'm talking to myself now.

 

Tags: buddhism, martial arts, meditation, zen
Current Location: The Institute for Really Unusual Research

I haven't posted much here lately, but given the general lack of activity, I have trouble feeling guilty about that.  Nevertheless, in a frivolous act of faith,  here I am lobbing another word-bomb into the ether.  My elbow, while far from one hundred percent, allows me to type more comfortably now.  Physical therapy is going well, and I felt solid enough to travel with the Digital Simplistics team to New Orleans for the week-long NCPA (National Conference of Pharmacy Associations).  Ron carried my luggage, or most of it, and I wore a sling through the crowded airport terminals.

New Orleans remains one of the most exciing cities in the country.  Our DSI team stayed in the Westin right on the edge of the Riverwalk and the French Quarter on Canal Street and St. Peter's, about six blocks off Bourbon Street.  I've been to NO a half-dozen times now, so I quickly found myself the designated guide.  On the first night (Friday) I led the group, along with several other business partners, to the famous Bourbon House, a very upscale and near-legendary restaurant.  The food, as always, was incredible.  The Bourbon House also has an extensive collection of fine bourbons.  I ordered glass of a special Four Roses bourbon, served neat for Ron and myself.  Ron's eyes bulged.  He's a sometime-fan of Crown Royal, but this was lightyears in taste and quality beyond Crown Royal.  DSI picked up the entire tab, and nobody held back on the ordering.  It was a grand and expensive meal.  With seafood gumbo, of course.

On Saturday, I helped out as best I could to set up the DSI booth.  The NCAP is sort of like the worldcon of the pharmacy business.  The dealers' room is not so much a dealers room as a Demonstration room.  You bring your products, set up your space, and show what you've got to offer.  Sales are not expected on the floor or at the event, but the demonstrations are provided with sales and inquiries to follow up afterward.  Contacts are made, partnerships launched, and much networking gets done.  Freebies, of course, are plentiful.  DSI provided mousepads, drink cozies, caps, and coolest of all, really attractive shot glasses.  I latched on to a shot glass, naturally. 

Saturday evening featured a giant reception with "heavy" appetizers on either side of the vast ballrom.  Heavy appetizers included spiced creole grilled shrimp, cajun meat pies, stuffed mushrooms, a crab meat gravy over crouton crackers, grilled crab claws, among a lot of other regional treats.  Tons of fruit (thank god) and cheeses and vegetables.  Oh - and seafood gumbo. 

After the reception, the entire team started back to the Westin, which was about six blocks away.  The weather, I should mention, largely sucked for New Orleans.  It was freezing Saturday night with a wind that nearly stopped you in your tracks.  We wound up stopping in a bar just to get warm, but also because they advertized "blowjobs."    We just had to go in and get blowjobs.  Of course, these blowjobs are drinks made of kahlua, banana schapps, and pineapple juice.  There might have been one more ingredient.  But they were incredibly tasty - and addictive.  When we were warmed by sufficient quantities of alcohol, Ron and I continued on to the hotel, minus my jacket, which I'd loaned to the wife of one of the team members.  I'm so gallant that way.  Did I mention that the reception had a free bar?  We were very warm.

I spent most of Sunday in the room alone.  I wanted time on my current novel, which is becoming sufficiently complex that I also needed to build a glossary.  I finished an entire chapter -and- got the glossary brought up to current.  And I was very happy to take time to work on my own projects, as well as do what I could for DSI.  That evening the DSI team was treated to dinner by the owner and staff of E-Rx, one of DSI's switching partners.  We left the Quarter to visit a place called Mandina's about eight miles away, arriving in three separate taxis.  I had a magnificent grilled shrimp with pasta bourdelaise.  Mounds of grilled shrimp.  There was a mediocre salad, but who goes to NO for salads?  Oh, and seafood gumbo.  Great gumbo.  I love gumbo.

This was also the night that about fifteen of us tried to prowl Bourbon Street as a group.  Herding fifteen people down Bourbon Street is no easy feat.  In fact, without cell phones, it would probably be impossible.  And yet, it was a roving party and incredible fun.

Monday, more time at the convention floor,  I spent half the afternoon resting and writing.  Ron got back to the room very late, announcing that I had fifteen minutes to get ready for dinner.  I might have protested, but dinner was at a place I'd been urging the team to visit since the first night - Mulate's.  Mulate's is a totally traditional cajun restaurant with live zydeco music every night, plus a dance floor.  I had allegator appetizers (for the second night) and crab-stuffed mushrooms (love those), a wonderfully tender blackened chicken breast with jambalaya.  Ron had an immense crawfish ettoufee, which I shared.  A massive slice of three-chocolate cake, which we splity.  Oh -- and gumbo.  Not seafood gumbo this time, but zydeco gumbo with andouille sausage and okra.  it was great.

We had no obligations to the convention on Tuesday.  The rest of the DSI team had everything well in hand, and it was the last day of the event.  It was the one day Ron and I had to "tour."  There were a lot of things we wanted to do - too many things, actually.  We checked out some art galleries, visited Cresence City Books, and found many of the other bookstores I remembered out of business.  We considered a riverboat cruise, but opted for a trolley tour of the Garden District.  Mostly, I got us very lost in the depths of the off-Bourbon areas of the French Quarter.  We found a Pharmacy Museum that we didn't know existed.  The first pharmacy in America was launched in New Orleans.  I could not, for the life of me, find Marie Laveau's Voodoo Museum.  I know it's still there somewhere.  Many of the street signs in Off-bourbon have been twisted to disposed of, either by Katrina or drunken revelers, and that was quite frustrating.  Nevertheless, we had a great time, picked up a few souvenirs and gifts, and headed back to the hotel for a brief rest, a shower, and a change of clothes.

Then it was off by ourselves to Acme Oyster Company for a dinner of char-grilled oysters and raw oysters,  Oh - and gumbo.  Chicken and shrimp gumbo.  I love gumbo.  However, I'll admit that by this time, I felt like I was pissing gumbo.  If I don't see gumbo for another week, I won't miss it.  With dinner done, and this being our last night in New Orleans, we wandered up Bourbon Street once again.  It was warmer Tuesday night.  We each snagged a couple of tee shirts -- Four for Twenty Dollars!  What a Deal! -- and got a couple of blowjobs (see above before you draw any conclusions).  We popped into the Old Absinthe House, one of my favorite longtime NO bars, and Ron surprised me with a glass of French Absinthe, sugar cubed, and all.  Wow.  Not the first time I've had absinthe, but this was the best.  On the way back to the hotel, we scored a couple of gorgeous art prints in a gallery, and rejoined the team in the hotel bar for final drinks.

Wednesday was the day to head home.  My arm  totally ached by this time.  I iced it down while waiting for room service to deliver breakfast, and was happy to get back into the sling for the uneventful trip home.

One final thing that made the trip interesting.  I chose two books to take along: THE PLANET BUYERS by Cordwainer Smith and LOST SOULS by Poppy Brite.  Brite's vampire novel is set in New Orleans, and she lives there.  During our wanderings I took the trouble to locate some of the streets and places mentioned in her novel, and it really brought the book to life.  It's an odd book to read, I'll note.  The "Goth" aspects of the novel seriously date it, and her cast of characters are annoyingly one-note.  However, Brite is a highly visual writer with a gift for description.  Some of her images just pop off the page

Tags: food, gumbo, ncpa, new orleans, poppy brite
Current Location: The Institute for Really Unusual Research
Current Music: "Rock Me Baby"

I learned earlier today that Ed Valigursky, an artist popular in science fiction from the 50's through the 70's, passed away in the last few days.  He was 82 years old.  Valigursky was one of the greats of the old days.  He did covers for Asimov, Clarke and Bradbury, Laumer, and many others.  Additionally, he did lots of magazine covers for publications such as AMAZING, IF, and lots of others.  In the 80's he switched to aviation and military style paints, and many of his works hang on permanent display in the Pentagon and the National Air & Space Museum.



You can see a good number of his covers and artpieces at http://www.collectorshowcase.fr/amazing_1957.htm, and I'm posting a few here just to encourage that. 

Tags: art, cover art, ed valigursky, science fiction
Current Location: The Institute for Really Unusual Research

Happy National Coming Out Day to all my friends, no matter your orientation.  One way or another, we all come out.  Many of us come out over and over; every new friend you make, every new group you join, every new job you take, you make the decision once again about how much to reveal about yourself - to come out.  May everyone be safe and secure and free from discrimination and harrassment.  And if you're not, may you find the strength and skills to kick the shit out of your oppressor.

Despite the loss of my desktop -and- my favorite laptop, it's been a rewarding weekend.  I still have a lot of discomfort in my elbow, but I had a great dinner with friends, Mike Higgins and Allison Stein, on Friday at Matsu's.  Sushi - yum!  Then Saturday, Ron and I toured an exhibit of Andy Warhol's work on display at Union Station.  Warhol's work is problematic for me in that I either love or hate the individual pieces.  When he's good, he's marvelous, but when he's bad, it's crap.  No middle ground, at least for me.  This particular exhibit was a mixed bag of marvels and crap.  I wouldn't mind having his iconic "Superman" portrait on my wall as part of my own Superman collection of kitsch.

After the exhibit, we joined friends in the local chapter of the Human Rights Campaign for the evening and listened to the president's speech live.  It was moving - and it was empty.  Sorry, Barack.  We're well past "audacity of hope," shit.  It's time for a little "audacity of Do."  The HRC fundraiser was reportedly a huge success.  I do not yet know how the National Equality March turned out.  I hope it went well, and I hope it achieves something.

This afternoon, Diana and I headed over to a friend's house to feed a couple of kittens.  The friend is in Canada, and a new mother cat and a baby about four weeks old turned up on her doorstep two days before she left.  Diana has officially been kitten-sitting this weekend.  The tiny furball is adorable.  I held it in on hand and held the can of kitten food in the other as long as my elbow allowed, and the kitten ate rigth out of it.  You find yourself thinking, "Oh my God, can I handle a new third kitten in the house with my allergies?"  I resisted, but I felt rotten for it.  <g>

With the kittens fed, we headed to Barnes & Noble and scored a couple of copies of Esther Friesner's new anthology, STRIP-MAULED, which has my story, "Meet the Harry's" in it.  One more for the brag shelf.  Go, me!

Tags: hrc, kittens, meet the harry's, national coming out day, national equality march, strip-mauled
Current Location: The Institute for Really Unusual Research