Because You Can Never Have Too Many Punks

Every now and then, scooting around the internet looking for writing markets, one bumps into a project that immediately appeals to something deep within one's psyche. Most themed anthologies are slow burners that sit in the back of my head until a eureka moment hits, or I already have a half-done story that seems to fit the bill so I get back to work on it, but occasionally one makes me sit up and want to get started on it from scratch right away. Like now! 

This submission call for original fiction for The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk is just such a one.

As it proclaims: If you need to know what dieselpunk is, it's a subcategory of steampunk, essentially, covering the 1920s through to the 1950s, including the Roaring Twenties, the Depression, World War II, and even a little beyond that.

I like this site for its classy pictures and atmosphere. I really need to give this project a go, I think, if only for the sheer fun of it.

 I see trench coats and smart little hats, a wintry night, dark Northern climes, mountains, trains... I do love trains. Maybe an explosion or two. Or not. A Depression Era tale maybe? And both World Wars always make interesting settings for weirdness set amidst global chaos. Not sure yet, but my brain is on it.

Go brain.

And after that?  Check out all the punks here.

Elfpunk maybe?

Hmmmm.  

Jaws-Droppingly Stupid

So over in Western Australia, the solution to humans and beasts sharing the planet is the same old same old - the onus is on the animals having to somehow (instinctively?) comprehend human society and understand that if they don't adhere to human rules, they'll be justly slaughtered.

In a program to make the beaches once more safe for the good citizens of WA, the first uppity shark was recently snagged by the drum lines and shot four times in the head. Obviously, it didn't realise that the shark mitigation plan was already underway:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/21036468/first-drum-lines-set-off-wa-coast/

Maybe it missed the warning email sent out to all monsters of the deep by the government.

Anyway, scientists, environmentalists and folk from all walks of life who think it's a little unfair to cull a species because of communication breakdowns have signed a letter of protest, but to no avail.

Less blood thirsty methods of keeping our beaches safe - signs, tagging, patrols, protected areas, education-  have been tried and tested overseas, but they would be, well, apparently far more difficult to instigate than hunting down these nasty, vicious, amoral beasties to whom food is just food, even the talking sort, and slaughtering them. A lot less fun for some people too, I suspect. Drones patrolling a beach and people having to get their butts out of the water in the spirit of inter-species harmony is far too soggy-hearted a solution.

We visit the sea. We can come and go as we please. To kill the creatures born in the sea and who cannot leave  the sea and who are acting according to instincts that have kept their kind alive for millions of years because of our own paranoid belief that it's all personal and they're out to get us, possibly annihilate us, just makes us look a little silly. Our indignation at the way sharks ignore human specialness, and the resulting indiscriminate vendettas based on the fact that these "monsters" repeatedly refuse to understand that the supposed sanctity of human flesh automatically takes us off Mother Nature's great menu, merely show us up to be the ignorant brutes in this scenario.
 

Have You Heard the One about the Nun and her Two Friends?

Armed with nothing more that a hammer and bolt cutters, they broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex, America's "Fort Knox" of weapons grade uranium, supposedly designed and fortified to repel terrorist attacks. I know I feel so safe after reading this:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/nun-megan-rice-sentencing-y-12-nuclear-weapons-security

"The security breach," as the Department of Energy's Inspector General later described it, exposed "troubling displays of ineptitude" at what is supposed to be "one of the most secure facilities in the United States." At a February hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, multiple members of Congress thanked Rice for exposing the site's gaping vulnerabilities. Eleven launch officers were targeted in a separate investigation of illegal drug use. But that didn't deter federal prosecutors from throwing the book at Rice and her accomplices: Greg Boertje-Obed, a 57-year-old carpenter, and Michael Walli, a 63-year-old Vietnam veteran. They now sit in Georgia's Irwin County Detention Center, awaiting a January 28 sentencing hearing where a federal judge could put them in prison for up to 30 years.

Laughable security, corruption and drug use, then retribution for daring to show up inexcusable and dangerous system failures - this is another of those I-wish-it-were-a-joke pieces one comes across scooting about the internet, a physical equivalent of your Snowdens and Assanges.

Methinks We Might Be Living in a Mike Myers Movie

And while we're on the topic of surveillance, how about this masterful piece of Friday fun, or at least I truly wish it were - the logo for the latest launch by US National Reconnaissance Office, the agency in charge of America's spy satellites.

So let's break it down: a grouchy looking octopus, tentacles gripping a globe, and the mantra "Nothing is beyond our reach." Yep, that really sounds like a great logo for the good guys.

Surely someone snorted out loud when whoever came up with this design presented it for the first time? Surely there was just one sane person in the whole room of military/Peeping Tom types who burst out laughing and yelled 'Pull the other one'? Someone who discerned a slightly dodgy message in the image? Someone grounded in the real world? Someone with a sense of perspective? Someone who'd seen just one James Bond movie? Or an episode of Get Smart?

Anyway, the NRO obviously thought it was okay, and as said, they've stuck it on one of their rockets. You can see the pictures of the launch here. I hope the NRO doesn't get too attached to this logo. It's almost too embarrassing to contemplate the possibility of scores of grumpy, mean-looking octopuses orbiting our planet, their grabby tentacles lined with surveillance suckers reaching out for us the bad guys while they take snaps of us the bad guys as we they go about our their business and eavesdrop on our everyday conversations the bad guys' evil plans.

The world just gets weirder by the day.

Oh, for the good old days when only evil geniuses intent on world domination indulged in such pictorial megalomania. And had fluffy, white cats.

Kids Will Be Kids

I love it when archaeology gives us a glimpse into the everyday lives of past peoples and show us that some things just never change, thank goodness.

In the 1950s archaeologists made a great discovery near the city of Novgorod, Russia: they dug up hundreds of pieces of birch bark with all sorts of texts written on them. The 915 items are mostly letters, notes and receipts, all written between the 11th and 15th century

In the 13th century, young schoolboys learning to write filled these scraps with alphabets and short texts. Bark was ideal material for writing down things with such a short half-life. Then the pupils got bored and started to doodle, as kids do...

http://erikkwakkel.tumblr.com/post/67681966023/medieval-kids-doodles-on-birch-bark-heres

One of these doodling kids was a certain Onfim, who had dramatic daydreams indeed. You can read more about his artwork here: http://www.goldschp.net/SIG/onfim/onfim.html 

Onfim was being taught to write, but he was obviously restless with his lessons and when he could get away with it, he intermixed his assignments with doodlings. In this first example, he started to write out the first eleven letters of the alphabet in the upper right corner, but got bored and drew a picture of himself as a grown-up warrior impaling an enemy with his spear. To remove any doubt about the identity of the warrior, he even labelled the person on the horse as "Onfim."

I especially like the doodle with Onfim as a mini-warrior with his warrior Dad:

 Ah, kids. Give them a stick of chalk or a piece of bark...

Angels And Gunships

So there was an election over the weekend here in Australia, and this time I was kindly allowed to vote when I turned up at the polling station (as opposed to last time when... oh, let's not go into it. After much mucking around, my vote ended up being deemed invalid. And the Electoral Commission had the gall to send me a $50 fine afterwards!)

Anyway, this time the local proceedings were enlivened by some dedicated soul with much time and passion on their hands who had handwritten lots and lots of signs (they were very neat, clean, large, white cardboard signs, so a certain monetary investment had gone into them as well)  and hung them all around the inner town. The walls across from the polling station were plastered with them too. Unfortunately, I was having a quick walk and vote before dinner so I was travelling light, otherwise I would have snapped a few photos. The signs all said the same thing:

Voting for the Liberals is like voting for the gunships in Avatar.

Whatever your voting persuasion, you have to admit that this concerned citizen had a clear message they wanted to convey and effectively communicated it - as long as the passing readers were sufficiently up on their pop culture, were SF fans or blockbuster movie-goers or the like. It's a vivid image, rather brutal, and one that speaks of much dread and disappointment.

I just hope that person is wrong.

A little more of politicians of all leanings and stripes listening to their better angels and rationally engaging in an informed democracy for the good of the whole country, and a lot fewer automatic gunship attacks on anything that moves or looks different or disagrees with one would be greatly appreciated.

They Burst My Bubble, But I Fixed It

I was in the zone, writing, writing, writing, and then a letter arrived from the hospital saying that I had to head off to the city for a scan tomorrow. Tomorrow! Since I knew that I'm not due back there until March, this was either Bad News or a load of hooey. I was guessing it was the latter because I figured (hoped) someone would have informed me if it was the former.

Anyway, this is not a good time of the year for dealing with hospitals - everyone who possibly can is on holidays (usually the competent people the hospital want to keep happy) and rosters are up the creek - but I bravely embarked upon the endeavour. I won't bore you with the details, but simply say it involved a lot of toing and froing between staff who either didn't have a clue or didn't give a flying fig. Finally, I left a message with my usual medicos and then sat around waiting for a response. When they did get back to me, I was informed that my hooey theory was entirely correct. Sherlock Holmes, eat your heart out.

When you get swallowed up by any sort of human system or institution, you really have to question what's going on. I worked in hospitals for over 12 years, and I can tell you that a passive patient can end up a dead patient. Anomalies left unchallenged can have big knock-on effects. Not because of evil intent or gross incompetence, but because some people are good at their jobs, but many are not, and others simply don't care. If you're a people-watcher, hospitals are both fascinating with their life-and-death dramas involving people of great dedication, smartness and superhuman efficiency, but also terrifying in that you can end up on dysfunctional wards where the either staff can't leave their personal lives at the door on the way in and the patient is viewed as the least important and most annoying part of the daily routine, or the place is a war zone full of bickering workers. Good material for soap operas, not so good if you're the one flat on your back in bed with tubes coming out of all your orifices. Neglect, passivity, fear of authority, back-stabbing teams, laziness, incompetence, miscommunication, all the usual interpersonal relationship problems that you get in any badly managed office also apply to badly run hospitals, but unfortunately their mistakes involve flesh and blood humans and can result in unnecessary funerals. So if you end up in hospital, question, question, question. Be a nuisance and live.

Ah well, it's done now. I can get back into my writing head space and keep on holidaying tomorrow. Yay! I did get to look over and  submit another 3 stories whilst waiting for my callbacks, so the morning hasn't been a complete waste. Now I'll hit the keyboard for a few hours of catchups. Big SF story, here I come.

Tuppence For My Thoughts

Increments. I'm clawing back minutes from  my still overwhelming desire to nap all the time and slowly, very slowly, re-establishing old habits and getting my brain back in writing shape.

I'm not writing for 1.5-2 hours each day before heading off for the Arvo Job (*sigh* those were the days), but I am sitting at the keyboard every morning and doing 30 minutes of work. Slowly, very slowly, one sentence at a time, stories are coming together. My brain is making fewer and fewer grating noises. Soon, I'll try to get up earlier and add another 30 minutes to that workout.

I'm not writing on the train yet, but I'm not snoozing all the way into Melbourne either, which is another minor triumph. I'm retraining my brain to not automatically start dozing as soon as I sit down by reading. Once again, the session lasts a magical 30 minutes, then, so far, no matter how hard I try, I do nod off. It's the same thing on the way home. The books I'm getting through are light and fun tomes that I can sneak in as an acceptable and more interesting alternative to napping, and hopefully I'll be able to extend these reading periods minute by minute, and eventually, when my brain is more limber, switch back to writing on the train. As I said, increments. My brain is like one of those pudgy, down-and-out, Rocky-like characters who slip on their old tracksuits and try to get back in shape so they can once more be contenders.

Anyway, at the moment, my light and easy read is the short story collection Partners in Crime (the cover on my copy is very boring compared with the very Jazz Age, 1929 first edition cover pictured here) one of the Tommy and Tuppence books by Agatha Christie. I read this series many decades ago, and absolutely adored it then, so I knew PiC would be just the ticket. Very light, very easy, very charming and amusing, full of words like 'foozle', expressions like 'old thing', and cases that involve discussions about haughty, titled folk and the likelihood of a hat pin being used as a possible murder weapon in a time when thoroughly modern girls with bobbed hair wear their cloche hats pulled tight down over their heads. Even thought there are corpses a plenty and much mayhem, it's all so good natured and friendly, cosy and reliable that one quickly forgets about the poor victims. Deep these books are not, but certain pertinent social observations are clever and snortingly funny.

The gaiety, the banter, young characters who have experienced the horrors of the Great War and are determined to live life to the full. The dazzling Jazz Age and its bright young children trying hard to forget the darkness and death they knew only too well was still out there waiting for them. T&T got my brain ticking along again in the nicest possible way, and sent me off on tangents about society, wars, permissiveness, and our modern obsession with crowbarring in unrelenting doses of UR ST whenever we have a fictional male-female partnership. One of the best things about the T &T books is that one simply doesn't have to put up with that kind of rot.

Furthermore

While we’re on the topic of what people wear, or don't wear, if you’re tired of illustrations or shots of warrior princesses obviously obsessed with looking “hot” risking their lives, limbs and prodigious mammaries by going into battle clad only in a leather mini and barely-there bra combo or a many-many-links-short-of-providing-any-kind-of-protection-whatsoever chainkini, then pop over to Women Fighters In Reasonable Armor. It features often stunning artwork of Women that don’t fight in high heels. Women that clearly give a shit about the practicalities of getting in a lethal situation.

I’d love to lift a few of the pictures and post them here, but the work is produced by professional artists trying to make a buck so copyright must be respected.

It's "Only" Words

This is my non-fiction reading-for-10-minutes-a-day-on-the-tram book for this month. It was first published in 2007 – I took a look when the author used the Susan Sarandon-Tim Robbins & Madonna-Guy Richie marriages as examples of a certain trend – and offers a peek into the world of politics/consumerism and the analysts who try their darnedest to influence people / wring as much money out of them as possible.

Anyway, the reason I’m mentioning this particular book is because of a certain confluence of events today. Firstly, after reading a chapter on love, sex and relationships, as I walked through the park afterwards, I found myself wondering what all those millions of young women who lost their childhood sweethearts and fiancés in what would now be labelled the “testosterone storms” of the Boer War/WW1/WW2, and who ended up being branded with the horrible tag spinster as they grew older, would have thought of being referred to as Sex-Ratio Singles instead. Would this zippier-sounding, demographic category have liberated them in some way? A story seed sprouted and turned into the start of an amusing tale set in the 1920s.

However, my amusing tale turned sour about an hour later when I heard, believe it not, the word spinster wielded like a nail-spiked cudgel when referring to an old woman simply because she was a ‘Miss’ and, possibly, was not as sweet as apple pie. Apparently, if you’re an old woman, you’re not allowed to be stroppy without it being directly related to your marital status.

It’s such a vile word. Not the individual, innocent letters put together, but the way the entirety is always used as a license to mock and ridicule. Have you ever heard anyone use the word spinster nicely? Or thoughtfully? It is always uttered with derision, and everyone nods in agreement, and smiles their judgmental smiles, and joins in poking fun at unmarried old ladies who might have suffered terrible losses in their lifetimes purely because... well, I’m actually at a loss as to why it’s okay.

Given the intrinsic superficiality of the word, I find it sad that it still packs enough of a wallop in this day and age to still be used by some as an insult.

Intruder Alert!

Just snapped. Foreign feline spotted at twelve o'clock sniffing OUR catnip:

A Battle for Hearts and Minds

From what I read this morning on the front page of the local paper, it's shaping up to be quite a fight. In the one corner we have a person with the uplifting, city-sounding words 'corporate support' as part of their job title. In the other corner we have those much loved, fundraisers extraordinaire, the local ladies of the Country Women's Association.

Ding! Out comes the shire's representative hitting heavily with business-speak sentences that include cheery zingers like '...discontinued the previous fee waiver policy...', '...implementation of the community facility hire rate to ensure equity with other community groups...', and '...to assist them with the transition including providing assistance and advice on making an application to...'

Ding! The CWA and its defenders butterfly-dance into the ring and counter with '...group that has a long history in the shire dating back to 1931...', '...all money raised goes to the community...', '...explain why the CWA has now been slugged for this enormous bill...", and '...what have we done so wrong to incur this kind of wrath from the council?'. There's also a lovely group photo of the grey-haired nans who have been baking scones for good causes for decades, cheery middle-aged types who can whip up trays of vanilla slices at the drop of a needy hat, and younger women, possibly trendy muffin makers, who will be the mainstays of the organisation in the years to come, one of whom is - bam! bam! bam! - hugging a cute country bub.

All I can say is, good luck with winning that one, local evil shire bosses.

Horse power

Over the past few days, there have been many photos of the newly installed Super-Duper Leader Mark Two of a certain Asian country that recently lost a much beloved despot and which remains somewhat challenged when it comes to citizens’ rights. Said Super-Duper Leader Mark Two has been snapped climbing out of tanks, holding machine guns, and inducing hysterics in common folk with a single glance.

The photo that caught my attention, however, was the one of SDLM2 astride a horse which was constantly referred to as ‘a nervous-looking grey’. My first thought was a knee-jerk one along the lines of ‘You think?’ Then I realised that for a seemingly simple phrase, it was actually quite a cunningly constructed piece of biased reporting. As if the horse in the photo has any idea that the lump on its back might have it taken out behind the shed and shot if it doesn’t perform to standard. Its nervousness, if indeed it is nervous, has nothing to do with human politics. Said SDLM2 might be throwing his weight around and tugging the reins and sending conflicting instructions to his mount. The pair of them might be surrounded by crowds of extremely anxious people worried that the SDLM2 might fall off the horse and be injured. Or look like a fool. Or shoot them along with the horse because he was injured / looked like a fool. That amount of human fear would be enough to make any horse agitated.

However, I’m betting that it’s only the Western media that described the horse as nervous-looking. I’d say that in SDLM2’s own country, the head-tossing steed is probably referred to as ‘spirited’ and ‘noble’. The horse is still a powerful symbol of manliness and authority in many countries, which is no doubt why the message people felt the need to trot one out along with the tanks. For added punch, white/grey horses are an important part of many Asian and European mythologies, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that the grey horse in question already has a mystical “backstory” along the lines of it being a once-wild creature that wandered in off the plains and knelt down in obeisance and love before SDLM2.

Equine Odyssey

We saw War Horse today. WARNING - spoilers ahead.

So it was out with the old way of trampling folk underhoof on glossy steeds and slaughtering folk with shiny sabres...

...and in with the new way of crushing people with dirty tanks and shredding them with machine guns.

The war scenes were harrowing, and I was glad to read this piece about how all the horse and battlefield stunts were done, especially those involving barbed wire.

However, as a fan of the book by Michael Morpurgo, I found it enormously irritating that the boy's family was cleaned up and made Disney-nice at the beginning. Given that it was a movie about the horrors and cruelty of mass warfare versus individual decency, I also thought the use of the father's regimental pendant glorified war in a way that was contrary to the general message. I realise that handing over this symbol of a past war and the father-son handshake at the end, one soldier to another, was all about 'now you understand what I went through, son', but to me it also had uncomfortable overtones of that 'and war has made a Man of you' bilge that helps to perpetuate the notion of war as a character building experience for young men. And the film ends right there, with that message.

In the book, Albert goes back to the family farm with his horse, marries, and puts the war completely behind him rather that dwelling upon it, embodying the very virtues of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519 BC – 430 BC) who fought when he had to, but preferred his plow to the battlefield. The handshake at the end of War Horse, and the cinematography which so blatantly evokes Gone with the Wind, seems to give back to the concept of war a sense of nobility and honour that the film spent 2 hours (sort of) dismantling.

Ah well, perhaps I'm reading too much into it. I wonder what T.S. Elliott and Siegfried Sassoon would have made of it all.

Feeling outshausted

In a few days, my presently hired out brain will belong to me again. Thoughts unrelated to the Arvo Job will hopefully occur then. Bring it on.

And speaking of long days at work, a certain despot (I will not sully my blog with his name) just carked it. According to official and entirely believable sources i.e. rich and powerful apparatchiks with no interest whatsoever in maintaining the status quo, this much loved leader's heart attack was the result of his being exhausted from selflessly slaving away, year after year, to make life better for his poor, downtrodden, persecuted, starving, bled dry and dying-in-droves people.

Yeah. He was a real saint.

11-11-11

TRENCHES ON THE SOMME

by Mary Riter Hamilton

Sad facts

I had a note in my diary to check up on Maria Gomes Valentim. Born on 9th July 1896, she would have been 115 years old today. Unfortunately, she died 18 days ago on 21st June 2011 (which I must have missed in the end of June rush). Still, 114 years and 347 days is a good haul. What an amazing chunk of history she witnessed.

Because I also read a review of Nagasaki: The Massacre of the Innocent and Unknowing by Craig Collie this morning, I automatically linked the two events and worked out that Maria was 49 years old when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan 6/8-1945 and 9/8-1945. 49! I wonder how aware she was of what had happened, how horrified or not she was when word, and finally images of the dead and dying people, trickled out. These days, drenched as we are in instant updates, I don’t think we can really grasp how long it used to take for information to reach the general public. And even then, how much of that information was just self-serving propaganda?

Apparently Craig’s book tackles a lot of the mythologies about the bombings, and he writes that most Japanese people remained largely unaware of what had happened because of the strict censorship, and even the people in charge didn’t fully understand what had occurred. Because the world seems so small and fast now, it’s hard for us to imagine that such an epic event, seared into our psyches by decades of investigations and countless images from movies and such, wasn’t instantly perceived by every single person on the planet. We imagine the ground shook. But the world is a big place. And no-one tweeted about Fat Man or Little Boy.

Other sad facts stand out. Harry Truman didn’t authorise the dropping of either bomb. An unelected military officer – General Thomas Handy – gave the formal orders. After Nagasaki, Truman insisted any further bombs would require his authority, which put a stop to the military experimentally dropping a third bomb on Tokyo. And in another of Time’s vaggaries, the original target for the first bomb was the industrial town of Kokura, but the elements and mechanical failures conspired to necessitate a change of course mid-fight, and Nagasaki was enveloped in the nightmare instead. But Kokura was saved.

How do you get your head around that? A bit of bad weather and you get vapourised. Or not. Life. Luck. Wow.

Clunes, and a Confederate Widow

So, I’m back from the booktown with bags full of bargains, must-haves and curiosities. It was a grey, damp kind of Sunday, but once we got to Clunes, there were happy book folk everywhere muttering things like "But then I got to chapter 10 and lost interest", music from a bandstand and zippy tunes from the restored Australia Fair Grand Concert Street Organ, and a Punch and Judy show that was a huge hit with the kids. As we ducked in an out of buildings scavenging for goodies, you could hear the littlies in the background laughing their heads off and yelling advice to the puppets. Amazingly, some things never change. However, at one point while we were passing, a concerned parent did object to the needless violence, but was instantly dismissed with a loudly broadcast “Well, what do you expect? This is a Punch and Judy Show”. Many passers-by nodded.

Apart from books, both old and new, there were many old newspapers and magazines. I nabbed a Life Magazine from Dec 27, 1943 that caught my attention, first because of the Xmas / WW2-far-from-over-yet juxtaposition, then because of a certain article inside. Now that I’ve Googled a bit, it turns out to be quite a famous issue for the exact reason that I took it – the piece on Mrs Helen Dortch Longstreet, the 80+ year old widow of Confederate Army General James Longstreet (who became a character in Harry Turtledove’s 1997 alternate history novel How Few Remain) doing a Rosie the Riveter turn at the Bell Aircraft plant in Atlanta. The article tells how she commuted daily in her Nash coupe from the trailer she lived in alone near Atlanta to the plant where she was a regular on the 8 to 4.45 shift.

This picture, and the following quote sold me on the issue. She said, "I am going to assist in building a plane to bomb Hitler and the Son of Heaven to the Judgment Seat of God." She also informed the reporter that, "I was at the head of my riveting class. In fact, I was the only one in it." which, I've discovered, is constantly repeated in all her biographies.

Anyway, I’m glad I got it, because somewhere in the back of my mind, there’s a story bubbling about a Confederate widow, WW2 and...

End the week with a larf

Go see the CATS OF WAR.

Signs of Sunday: War