Category Archives: Culture: sf & pulp lit

Increasing social connectivity in this corner of the blogosphere

Discover Magazine has a great, short piece on the connectivity of the blogosphere:

The blogosphere is the most explosive social network you’ll never see. Recent studies suggest that nearly 60 million blogs exist online, and about 175,000 more crop up daily (that’s about 2 every second). Even though the vast majority of blogs are either abandoned or isolated, many bloggers like to link to other Web sites. These links allow analysts to track trends in blogs and identify the most popular topics of data exchange. Social media expert Matthew Hurst recently collected link data for six weeks and produced this plot of the most active and interconnected parts of the blogosphere.

Link with incredible graphic. (Thanks, Techyum.)

And who’s at the center of this vast social network? Daily Kos, BoingBoing, Michelle Malkin, gadget freaks, porn lovers, and sports fanatics. Good grief. People who blog about religion and culture don’t even show up. Which doesn’t surprise me — bloggers in my tiny corner of the blogosphere don’t talk to one another much, we don’t link to one another’s posts, and basically we don’t exploit the potential of social connectivity that exists in the medium of blogging. To change that a little tiny bit, here are some links to the best blog posts I’ve read recently:

ck at Arbitrary Marks posts a thoughtful video commentary on women blogging without having to deal with stalkers and crazies (I’ve already commented over there, no need to repeat here): Link.

Will Shetterly is moving “It’s All One Thing” from Blogger over to Live Journal. He promises less religion, which probably means more science fiction. That works for me. I’m liking the new cat story: Link.

Jeremy at Voltage Gate provides links to dozens of bloggers who have bioblitzed over the past week. I’ve been following his links to some very cool ecosystems from Ontario to Panama, and enjoying citizen science in action: Link.

Abby at Children and Books has a great post about teaching, where one of the kids she’s teaching gets a complicated concept. Short as it is, this post is really sticking with me, and I’m still mulling it over: Link.

Oo, oo, I get one of those…

I don’t usually post images on this blog (I’m trying to keep my bandwidth down because I’m a cheapskate), but I can’t resist this one. Thanks to Boing Boing, I found the Order of Science Scouts, who are dedicated to “an ideal where science communicators can meet firstly, for drinks; secondly, for communicating; and ultimately, for networking.” They are issuing merit badges. I actually qualify for one of the merit badges.

Waitaminute, you ask, how can Dan (who is after all a minister) consider himself a Science Scout? Well, campers, I started out my academic career as a physics major, switching to philosophy as an undergrad under the impression that I would be able to answer deeper questions about cosmology as a philosopher than as a physicist, and because I mistakenly thought I’d meet more women. And I figure I actually do communicate about science just like a real Science Scout, since I have asserted on this blog that the current president of the United States is anti-science; and I sometimes identify birds, mammals, invertebrates, and plants that I mention on this blog in binomial nomenclature (e.g., Carol and I saw a Phoca vitulina on our walk today). Admittedly, my use of binomial nomenclature is pretty sad, but I do feel that calling George Bush anti-science should get me enough points to call myself a Science Scout.

So here’s the merit badge I qualify for: The “I left the respectable sciences to pursue humanistic studies of the sciences” badge, in which the recipient is now probably having a lot more fun than he/she did before….

science merit badge

I would also qualify for the “Experienced with electrical shock” badge (Level III), except I got shocked when working as a carpenter, not in the physics lab. I won’t admit to qualifying for the “setting things on fire” (Level III) badge. Or the “freezing things” badge.

Bon mots on reading and writing

On Friday and Saturday, I attended Boskone 44, the 44th annual convention of the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA). This was not one of those conventions filled with people dressed up like Star Trek characters — NESFA conventions tend to focus on books, and the people who attend tend to love readings and writing, and you’re more likely to hear about decoding and deconstructionism than about Klingons. Herewith my notes from some of the panel discussion I attended:

Religion in Fantasy

Authors Judith Berman, Debra Doyle, Walter H. Hunt, and Jane Yolen began by discussing the question, “Is it too simplistic to say that C. S. Lewis’s and J. R. R. Tolkein’s fantasy promotes Christianity, while Philip Pullman’s subverts it?” The panel questioned whether Tolkien’s books can even be considered Christian. Jane Yolen, who is Jewish, summed it up when she asked, “Tell me what’s Christian about them.” The overall arc of the story is perhaps more reminiscent of Norse mythology.

As for Philip Pullman, the panel could not agree on what religious viewpoint he might have, if any. Only half joking, Judith Berman said, “Maybe he’s a crypto-Swendenborgian.” All four authors agreed that C. S. Lewis used more non-Christian elements (fauns, talking animals, etc.), than explicitly Christian elements. Berman, who first read Lewis’s “Narnia” books at age 13, talked about the “anger” she felt when she first realized that the books were supposed to be Christian apology in disguise. Debra Doyle, however, said that her 4th-grade self was fascinated to realize that an author could use such allegory in a book — it was the first time she had gotten an allegory in a book.

The best remark of the hour came from Jane Yolen. Yolen brought up the fact that as a Jew, she has written Christmas books. She said that when she was on a book tour, a child once said to her, “I thought you were Jewish. How could you write Christmas books?” To which Yolen replied: “Well, I’ve written murder mysteries, too.”

What Can’t You Read?

The question behind this panel discussion was simple: what classic books do you feel you should read, but every time you sit down to read them, you’re gravely disappointed? Fred Lerner, a librarian and bibliographer, admitted that for years he was unable to get through Joyce’s Ulysses. Patrick Nielsen-Hayden, who’s an editor at Tor Books and who said that he cultivates a short attention span to get through slush piles, remarked of the best-selling book Dune, “I can’t get more than three chapters into it before my brain turns to concrete.” (Personally, that’s the way I feel about Ulysses.)

Nielsen-Hayden also asserted that “reading is like a trance state, neurologically, physically, mentally,” and that anything that an author does to break that trance state can make a book unreadable for a particular reader. Then Lerner took the discussion off into a fascinating tangent on decoding — a reader has to be sufficiently adept at decoding in order to get into a trance state. Lerner quoted critic and author Samuel Delaney, who has said that reading science fiction requires a very specific subset of decoding skills. The panelists speculated that those who enjoy reading science fiction have to be introduced to the genre by their early teens to become adept at that subset of decoding skills. (This prompts me to speculate that this phenomenon might apply to other genres of writing.)

The Religious Life of Techies

…where “techies” are those who work in some high technology field, e.g., computer science. A couple of bon mots during this panel discussion from Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Jesuit who is also an astronomer employed by the Vatican:

A techie working in Silicon Valley supposedly said to Consolmagno, “You know, with religion, you’re not selling truth, you’re selling tech support.”

When asked by a member of the audience how he could reconcile his work in astronomy with having to accept the creation story in Genesis, Consolmagno replied that taking Genesis literally was a “Protestant heresy.” To which another member of the audience added, “These people say that God is omnipotent and all-powerful — except when it comes to knowing how to use allegory and metaphor.”

Word counts and Sturgeon’s Law

First of all, remember Sturgeon’s Law: 95% of anything is crap. Originally developed for science fiction, the same law applies to all writing.

I write a 2,500 word sermon three out of four weeks, along with a 250 word prayer and perhaps other incidental material for the worship service. I write a 700 word column for the church newsletter every two weeks. I write another 1,500 words of reports each month. So as a minister, I write nearly 11,500 words a month, ten months a year — or 115,000 words a year.

Then for fun and relaxation I write this blog, for which I’ve been averaging about 500 words a day, or about 15,000 words a month. This month I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month, which should result in another 50,000 words (I’m already ahead of schedule — as of today, my official NaNoWriMo word count stands at 12,589). In the last week of June, I wrote stories for the denominational Web site as part of the coverage of the annual denominational meeting, for a total of about 8,500 words. My total recreational output this year will be about 238,000 words.

Add recreational output to professional output, and you get over 350,000 words. Now apply Sturgeon’s Law, which predicts that I will write no more than 17,500 words that aren’t crap.

The problem is, how do I sift through all the crap to find the 17,500 words that aren’t crap?

(244 words, not counting the title or this parenthetical note; of which 12.1 words are worth reading.)

Al Gore vs. Bender

If you’re a fan of the Futurama TV show, you’ll know that Bender is mouthy robot given to saying things like “Comedy’s a dead art form. Now tragedy…heh heh heh, that’s funny.”

Now Bender the robot takes on Al Gore in a short cartoon, “A Terrifying Message from Al Gore,” featuring dialogue like this:

Al Gore: If we don’t do something, our planet will become a deadly smog ball that will choke out all life.

Bender: Good! More beer for the robots!

How can you resist? See it now: Link.

The Case of the Amazing Attorney

The Hero has to wend his way through the snares and traps of untruthful witnesses, past clients who would throw him to the Wolves, and find the path that leads to Truth and Justice. With him is the Heroine, always calm and capable, ready to do battle beside the Hero at a moment’s notice. They are accompanied by the Sidekick, never as brave as the Hero but competent and completely honest. Cornered by the bear-like Adversary, the Hero triumphs at the last minute, finding truth and saving the Beautiful Maiden from disgrace and death.

It sounds like something Joseph Campbell might have written, but of course it’s only a description of the typical Perry Mason novel. Erle Stanley Gardner wrote 85 books featuring the amazing attorney, his saucy secretary Della Street, and the dogged detective Paul Drake. The books are potboilers so devoid of literary merit that they are unlikely to ever be assigned in a high school English class. Yet millions of copies have been sold, starting with the first book in 1933 and continuing to the present day.

Two days ago, I went down to the Harvard Book Store to browse through their used book section in the basement, and I found a paperback copy of The Case of the Crooked Candle first published in 1944. At the cash register, the young woman checking me out looked like the typical bookish person who works at the Harvard Book Store. But she didn’t comment on the Daniel Pinkwater young adult novel I purchased, nor did she notice that I had the classic two-volume Sources of Indian Tradition, nor did she say anything about The Cornel West Reader.

When she got to The Case of the Crooked Candle, she looked me in the eye and smiled. “Perry Mason!” she said delightedly. “They say that they’re going to put out the entire television series on DVD!”

“You mean the original one, in black and white?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said. “I hope they do put it out on DVD, I’m going to buy it and watch them. I love Perry Mason!”

The literary snobs may turn up their noses at Perry Mason, but book store employees don’t give John Updike that many exclamation points. The literary snobs relish stories of grim truth and reality that reflect the sordid life that they believe we all live. Little do they know that most of us live partway inside the Realm of the Collective Unconscious, where they take part in the eons-old battle against Evil, and against Untruth.

I have tried reading Updike’s novels, but find them inexpressibly dreary. Indeed, I have mostly given up on reading fiction. Why should I read something someone has made up? — I’d rather read about things that really have happened. Maybe that’s why I continue to read Perry Mason novels:– they’re fiction, but Perry Mason is also the Hero, the Jungian figure who stalks through the Collective Unconscious righting wrongs and saving the day. That’s about as true as you can get.

As for The Case of the Crooked Candle, suffice it to say that the murder takes place on a yacht that is moored in shallow water. The crooked candle lead Perry Mason to unravel the true solution to the murder. And at the end of the book, after Mason reveals the solution to Della Street, Paul Drake, and his clients Roger and Carol Burbank, the phone in his office rings….

Mason nodded to Della. She picked up the receiver, listened a moment, then placed her hand over the mouthpiece.

“Chief, there’s a blonde woman out there with a black eye who says she has to see you at once. Gertie [the receptionist] says she’s terribly upset and she’s afraid she’ll have hysterics if…”

“Show her into the law library,” Mason said. “I’ll talk with her there. While I’m doing that, you can get a check from Mr. Burbank payable to Adelaide Kingman for one hundred thousand bucks. You’ll excuse me, I know. An hysterical blonde with a black eye would seem to be an emergency case, at least an interesting one — The Case of the Black Eyed Blonde.”

So the Hero ends one adventure, and immediately sets out on the next one….

Issac Asimov, humanist

Isaac Asimov, best known as a science fiction and science fact writer, was also president of the American Humanist Association up until he died in 1992. A re-issued biography, Isaac Asimov: A Life of the Grand Master of Science Fiction by Michael White (1994/2005, Carroll & Graf), gives us a glimpse into the religious life of this prominent humanist.

Asimov was born into a non-practicing Jewish family, and had almost no experience with organized religion as he was growing up. Yet he recognized the deep human need for some kind of religion, and had his own attachment to religious community as an adult: an Ethical Culture leader officiated at his second marriage (to Janet Jeppson, a psychiatrist and science fiction fan); and when he died, his memorial service took place at an Ethical Cultural Center (presumably at the New York Center for Ethical Culture, which is located across Central Park from the Asimovs’ apartment, but alas the book does not tell us this little detail).

Michael White’s biography also points out:

Asimov took humanism very seriously and frequently gave talks about it as well as devoting essays and entire books to the subject….

….Asimov placed education and knowledge at the pinnacle of his beliefs and was strongly of the opinion that the ignorance of those in political power lay at the root of the world’s problems. Like many of his friends and colleagues, he lamented the appalling scientific ignorance of most people. This ignorance was all the more scandalous, he believed, in those who were otherwise highly educated.” [pp. 186-187]

Here Asimov is a lot like us Unitarian Universalists — we, too, believe that education is absolutely crucial, and over the years many Unitarian Universalists have worked to spread education.

Interestingly, Asimov once attended a Unitarian Universalist worship service. The story goes like this: Asimov was on the faculty of Boston University as an associate professor of biochemistry in 1956, a time when his writing career was really starting to take off. He published a story called “The Last Question,” in which human scientists pose the following question to increasingly more powerful computers: “How can entropy be reversed?” I won’t spoil the story for you, but finally they get an answer that has, shall we say, certain religious overtones.

Machael White writes:

‘The Last Question’ even became the subject of a sermon at the Unitarian church in Bedford, massachusetts. Asimov somehow discovered that one of his stories was to be included in a sermon, and decided to attend. He sat quietly and unobtrusively in the back row, listening attentively. He never related what he thought of the sermon.

One last tidbit from this revised version of this biography. Michael White again:

Isaac Asimov was HIV positive and died from complications associated with AIDS. I was aware of this at the time of the first edition of this book, but chose to honor the wishes of Isaac’s family and friends who did not want me to bring this fact into my account. Isaac contracted the disease after being given infected blood during a surgical procedure, but it was some time before he became aware of his condition and his decline was gradual. However, a few years before his death he learned the nature of his illness and wished to make it known to his public and to bring the matter out into the open. But… he was advised against this because of fears that the news would devalue his apartment in New York….

Highly recommended book for anyone who wants to know more about this prominent humanist.