Meta Mandom Weekend

[Video: Charles Bronson shows proper fishing technique.}

Paternal duties this last weekend before school starts included a significant amount of silver screen time, between bouts of unsuccessful carp fishing (our Big Red + Corn Flakes bait recipe needs work—tips welcome).

The mandatory Saturday matinee screening (here in 102 in the shade Austin) of Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds exceeded my expectations. I walked out of Kill Bill vol. 1, unexpectedly finding my appetite for QT's self-referential pop-cultural smorgasbord ready for purging — something about the lack of emotional affect evident in the prolonged indulgences of grindhouse sadism. Tarantino's foray into Bridge Too Far territory allows him to find something more potent in his meta-cinema. Unable to sustain the scenes with Royales with Cheese, Tarantino constructs a pretty amazing ensemble narrative that embraces its own grounding in no other reality than subjectified cinematic experience of reality: an alternate history of WWII informed by Lee Marvin at the expense of Liddell-Hart. Using language as a key to unlocking the objectification of reality in a mediated age, starting with misspelled title a riff off a seminal spaghetti WWII flick, appropriated in a fleeting glimpse of a personalized handle carved into the stock of Aldo Raine's rifle.



Sunday night was a screening of Costa-Gavras' Z., a 1969 political thriller that riffs of a 1963 coup in Greece, reset in a placeless ur-Mediterranean nation-state somewhere between Paris and the Maghreb. It shares with Inglourious Basterds an elusive treatment of the idea of the protagonist, and an old-school pacing that maintains intense dramatic tension without hyper-kinetic fantasy.



The aperitif for these entrees was a Friday night laptop DVD viewing of the first episode of Venture Bros., the insane Adult Swim remix of 60s adventure cartoons, a strong recommendation of friends who know that I am an ideal audience for any serious effort to spelunk the subtext of Johnny Quest.



My conclusion: that all contemporary efforts at alternate history are not in fact based on alterations of actual history, but on remixes of pop cultural portrayals of that history, revealing the contemporary experience of history through the prism of Hollywood narrative. From Z. to The Parallax View to Oliver Stone's JFK, from The Dirty Dozen to Kelly's Heroes to Schindler's List, these narratives are the dominant semiotic experience of our recent history. Explaining, perhaps, why our leaders so often during times of geopolitical crisis speak from the action-adventure movie plot formula glossary. To the mind of contemporary culture, Inglourious Basterds is a work of realism, authentically depicting the contemporary American's idea of the experience of WWII.

This co-optation of consensus reality by movie trailer narrative arcs was confirmed at our pre-Z. sushi dinner, in which our friendly neighborhood Japanese yakitori chef flipped the una-ju on the grill and mentioned how Steven Seagal has been hanging out in the restaurant with Jessica Alba, Robert Rodriguez, and Danny Trejo, all working on the new Rodriguez film Machete, based on the trailer of an imaginary movie included in Grindhouse. (It is now confirmed that Seagal does in fact speak fluent Japanese.) Walking back from Z. through the downtown Austin that also serves as the set for Machete, one could be forgiven for projecting onto it a variety of alternate realities.



Perhaps the best confirmation, though, were the shorts screened before Basterds at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz: trailers for The Dirty Dozen bookended with Japanese cologne commercials featuring Charles Bronson inhabiting a Tokyo variation of men's adventure pulp that does not want to die.

There's no stench of apocalyptic death that a healthy splash of Mandom can't fend off. Live the century the way you want to live it:

Jack Trevor Story Memorial Prize

There was some big news at Armadillocon that doesn't seem to have gotten much attention. Which is a shame, because Armadillocon is such a literary-oriented convention and an award of this prestige isn't given out every day. But Friday night, during the meet-the-pros shindig, Michael Moorcock and his lovely wife Linda unexpectedly showed up with the express purpose of presenting the Jack Trevor Story Memorial Prize to none other than Texas' own Howard Waldrop.



The Jack Trevor Story Memorial Prize is awarded sporadically, and is presented by Moorcock, literary executor of Trevor's estate. Moorcock explained the audurous selection process in 2006:

The rules vary. They are fairly arbitrary. Sometimes it's a fair selection made from a number of writers. Sometimes it's to a writer who could do with the dosh (but is funny). Sometimes it depends on the size of the bribe offered to the committee. Which, sometimes, is just me.

When the prize was first awarded it was scrupulously fair. But, as in the course of all such prizes, it is now totally corrupt.

It is generally awarded for a work of fiction or body of work which, in the
opinion of the committee, best celebrates the spirit of Jack Trevor Story. The conditions of the prize are that the money shall be spent in a week to a fortnight and the author have nothing to show for it at the end of that time. This is to recall Mr Story's famous reply to the bankruptcy judge who enquired where a substantial sum of money paid to him for film rights had gone -- "You know how it is, judge. Two hundred or two thousand, it always lasts a week to a fortnight."

Waldrop was presented with a commemorative Jack Trevor Story Memorial Prize "Cup" which has the value-added feature of being able to drink coffee or other liquid beverages from, an uncertain amount of money generally assumed to be roughly equivalent to £50 (which Waldrop insists he will have no problem spending with nothing to show for it) and all the prestige he can eat. Overcome with emotion, Waldrop was overheard telling friends that the award had inspired him to go finish his long-delayed novel, I, John Mandeville.



Congratulations, Howard! Nobody deserves it more than you!

Additional Armadillocon photos may be viewed at Lisa on Location.

Armadillocon 31

Armadillocon 31 starts today. I'll be there in just a few short hours, as will fellow No Fear of the Futurians Alexis, Chris and Paul. My schedule is a bit light this year because of some personal conflicts, but I'll be around pretty much all weekend, off and on. If you want to catch me, here's my schedule.

Saturday
Autographing
10:00 AM-11:00 AM Dealers' Room
C. Osborne, J. L. Blaschke, A. M. Thomas, A. G. Latner

City Building
11:00 AM-Noon deWitt
R. Rogers, S. Lynch, M. Wells, S. Shinn, V. Docherty, J. L. Blaschke*
Creating a city that both works for your story, and makes sense for the world it is in.

Sunday
Editing Wholesale
10:00 AM-11:00 AM deWitt
K. Lansdale, C. Roberson, J. Frenkel*, S. Utley, J. L. Blaschke
How does editing an anthology differ from editing a novel or single story?

Note that there will be a whole heck of a lot of other cool guests as well, so if you haven't planned on doing so prior, how about adding Armadillocon to your weekend itinerary?

Strange Horizons fund drive!

While the traditional sf magazines struggle to figure out why their readerships continually decline despite ever more infantile tentacle porn on the covers, and commercially funded online journals come and go, the mysterious elves of Strange Horizons continue to broadcast great new sf every week from their magical servers secreted in the basement of a 1908 warehouse in downtown Dubuque (not far at all from the Lovecraftian effigy mounds north of town).

Strange Horizons publishes great work by new writers and established writers—not just short fiction, but quality criticism and beautiful poetry.

Where else do the practitioners of that ultimate esoteric art, speculative poetry, find a well-read paying market to publish a new poem every week?

Where else does a young writer place a story about Borges on The Love Boat and magical realism as a weapon of mass destruction?

Where else do you find several new professional reviews every week of new work in the field?

Strange Horizons is probably the most successful example in the genre of a non-profit business model. Which means every once in a while they need to conduct a fund drive, which they're doing right now. A few bucks goes a long way to helping them pay their writers, update their web design, and continue to make the disproportionate contributions they make to the field. The tireless editors, folks like Susan Marie Groppi, Jed Hartman and Karen Meisner aren't getting paid, but they need our help to be able to pay their contributors and keep the project running.

Donate now! You might even be able to select from the fabulous prizes, including autographed copies of Fast Forward 2 and original art by yours truly for the sold-out Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet 23!

SFWA statement on proposed Google book settlement

August 8, 2009

Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. (SFWA), in conjunction with outside counsel, has reviewed the terms of the proposed settlement between Google, Inc. and the Authors Guild, Inc., and other class action plaintiffs. On April 19, 2009, SFWA’s Board of Directors voted to stay in the claimant group in regard to SFWA-owned copyrights so that SFWA has standing to file a formal objection to the proposed settlement with the court. This decision should in no way be seen as an approval of the proposed settlement, nor construed as advice to either our members or writers with potential claims in general. Put simply, in order to file an objection, SFWA must opt-in as a claimant; should we opt-out, we lose our ability to formally object with the court.

Though it is clear that the proposed Google Book settlement is well-intentioned, the problems are myriad and, in SFWA’s opinion, the terms should be reviewed with extreme care by authors, in particular those authors who write fiction. Some of the particular problems we have identified include:

The proposed Google Book Settlement potentially creates a monopoly by granting Google excessive power to control the market for out-of-print books that are offered to the general public.

The “opt-out” mechanism proposed for the settlement contradicts the very foundation of copyright.

The financial impact on authors could be significant because the settlement would effectively thwart any third-party system from competing with Google and offering alternatives to authors of out-of-print works.

The terminology of the Google Book settlement makes no distinction, nor does it provide a mechanism for discovering the difference, between works deemed out-of-print and works in the public domain.

The class does not reflect the interested parties, primarily the holders of copyrights in "orphan works" where the rightsholder(s) cannot be identified or found.

The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers are poor representatives of the class as neither represents the types of work perhaps most significantly affected by the settlement, namely scholarly works.

The class representatives do not include any authors of adult trade fiction, an obvious issue for SFWA.

The class fails to consider fully licensees of works and fails to account for their interests.

By settling, Google never fully addressed and litigated the issue of copyright infringement/fair use, which was at the heart of the 2005 lawsuit brought forth by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. The settlement further obfuscates the issue of how Google’s scans and publication of the snippets should be treated under U.S. copyright law.

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list, but merely a sampling of some of the problems SFWA believes are inherent in the proposed settlement. SFWA is not advocating a particular course of action nor providing legal advice for individual authors, who should evaluate the proposed Google Book settlement based on their own situation and with the advice and input of their own legal counsel.

For the record, SFWA believes that the proposed Google Book settlement is fundamentally flawed and should be rejected by the court. With this public statement, we advise all authors and other writing organizations (in particular those who hold copyrights) to consult with legal counsel to ensure that they understand the precise meaning of the Google Book settlement, and the impact it may have on their own situation, should the settlement be approved.

For the Board of Directors,
Russell Davis
President
SFWA, Inc.

Stand by for further instructions

I have been quiet over here of late, too busy doing my part in the ongoing cyberwar at Sukhumi State. In the spirit of Paul's homage to civil defense communiques from the state, a few potentially liberating distractions for your slow Saturday.

1. Dery in Roma.



At Boing Boing, the brilliant Mark Dery is guestblogging a series of fantastic short essays based on his recent stint with the American Academy in Rome. Have witnessed it firsthand in another venue, I can assure you that no one does deep tourism like Mark, who should be liberated from the book and given his own cable show, like the semiotic Anthony Bourdain (if there's a frames-per-second medium that can keep up).


2. Riffing with Mats.

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Over at The Quietus, an outstanding interview with Swedish maestro Mats Gustafsson, the brilliant punk who turns a jazz saxophone into a postmodern Gjallarhorn that heralds the Ragnarök of our everyday Zeitgeist.

Ohhh herregud . . . what’s that sound? That viscous, abrasive tone, resembling Albert Ayler drowning in hot bitumen? That squealing, squalling, peeling, mauling degradation of brass? That would be Sweden’s finest export, Mats Gustafsson. The prolific saxophonist has been an exponent of wildy unfettered improvisation since the early 1980s, working with everybody from improv legends Derek Bailey and Ken Vandermark to Italian hardcore math-skronk trio Zu and visonary sun-god eYe from the Boredoms.

His most stable project has been his long-standing trio The Thing, with bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love — a swinging harsh-jazz ensemble renowned for meaty deconstructions of Bowie, the White Stripes, Peter Brötzmann, Lightning Bolt and countless other unlikely targets.

How spontaneous or pre-planned is the music of The Thing?

MG: I was very influenced by Per Henrik Wallin (Swedish free-jazz pianist and composer). Hearing his Trio as a kid in the early ’80s . . . I’m happy to say that we took some of their music-making tools and made them ours.

We have a ‘book’ of perhaps a couple of hundred pieces, all in the fingers, feet and heads… and we never, ever decide what pieces to do before a performance. That’s the method that works best for us, just improvising with what we have. Whatever shows up, we play!

All the great music we can find, we try to use — be it hardcore or metal, tropicalia or schlager, noise or garage rock, free jazz or West Coast. We try to make it our music. The Thing’s music. Our concerts are always improvised. We have to find out during playing what pieces to do. I think that makes it much more involving for the audience as well. And for sure it keeps us on our toes!

Setlists suck.

What’s the source of the highly physical, almost violent aspects of The Thing’s music? Rage? Frustration? Joy?

MG: Peace, love, fire, vinyl, grappas and good BBQ! Again, ‘Music is like living, but better.’


3. Looping the apocalypse.



The Wall Street Journal examines the phenomenon of apocalypse movies, trying to understand what cultural forces propel the never-ending stream of of fantasies of the destruction of civilization. Especially interesting is the trend of filmmakers using real footage of contemporary catastrophes like Katrina and 9/11, decontextualized, to trigger the viewer's emotional experience. Even more interesting would be if WSJ would explore the link between apocalypse movies and the things covered on the front page of the chronicle of American business: the status of narratives of disaster and depopulation as works of realism, depicting the emotional reality of what it often feels like to live in our alienated society.

San Antonio launches Worldcon bid!

Hey kids! Remember LoneStarCon 2? Sure you do! It was a whole heck of a lot of fun way back in 1997. The first Worldcon ever held in Texas, in fact. Well, get ready, because we're about to do it again:



San Antonio is a city unrivaled for this kind of shindig. The folks there like to throw parties at the drop of a hat: A new stoplight is going up on Zarzamora Street? Fiesta! Don't believe me? Ask John Picacio, a San Antonio native. Or Scott Cupp. Or Damien Broderick, a transplant from Down Under. I expect Missions Unknown will be chok-full of Worldconly goodness in the months to come.

So what are you waiting for? Avoid the rush! Go buy your pre-supporting memberships now!