Back in the Saddle, Albeit Briefly

Posted on January 11, 2013 by fsdthreshold

Happy New Year to all!

What a glorious week this has been! It was my great joy and privilege to substitute teach for a friend who needed a sub at the Community College of Beaver County. So for the first time, I have stood in an American college classroom as the teacher! I have taught a week of writing to native speakers of English! And, wow! — nothing could have motivated me more to try to find a way to do this full-time again. No matter how hard it is, one way or another, I need to get that master’s degree. The classroom really is where I belong. To be using more of my primary gifts again was wonderful.

I had twenty-three students. For the most part, they were responsive and seemed appreciative. They were willing to try the activities I had ready for them. Yes, full-time writing is still what I’d choose if I had the choice; but it sure felt good to be teaching again!

I’m also grateful to my regular bosses for letting me off recycling work so I could do this. I will say this for my job: it does offer a lot of flexibility. As long as I arrange it well in advance, I can take the time off to do good things.

I’ve used the freer schedule this week to forge ahead on my book, too. Alas, Frick Park is still too cold and wet to allow for writing there, but I’ve discovered the best indoor writing location in Pittsburgh: the main branch of the Carnegie Library. I’ve spent a lot of time there this week with the Neo. My favorite place there is in one of the grand halls on the second floor, where I can write beneath the high-arching, molded ceiling, surrounded by books. The library even has a coffee shop on the first floor. Coffee, slow time, soft lighting, the scent of pages and scholarship, the stir of quiet, occupied people, and writing tools . . . sigh . . . another earthly glimpse of Paradise.

Catching up — it’s been forever — I am going to try my utmost to write blog entries more often in this new year! . . . I saw The Hobbit for a second time, this time in 3-D. I’m still not a big fan of 3-D movie technology, but the film itself is amazing. It gets even better under scrutiny. I was talking with Marquee Movies about this, and I concluded that, much as I love the LOTR movies, there’s something I love just as much about this one. I think it’s because The Hobbit is simply pure adventure. The world isn’t at stake. Either the Dwarves will reclaim their home, or they won’t. Middle-earth is still in the (deceptively) peaceful balance of the Third Age. Bilbo goes on an adventure, and all we know about the ring so far is that it’s extremely handy. I love the lightness and fun of The Hobbit. We’re not yet into the dark Responsibility of LOTR.

And for that reason, The Hobbit evokes for us the stories we fell in love with as children. Remember those, whatever they were in your case? I remember sitting with my grandma on the couch as she would read to me, and inevitably she’d fall asleep, and just before she did, whatever we were reading, she would murmur, “And the little dog had more.” She’d say it in a happy, concluding sort of way. It must have been the last line of some story she’d known as a child, or perhaps one she’d read to her kids, my mom and the others. Anyway, it was a happy line echoing down the corridors of time.

For me, this movie version of The Hobbit resonates with much of that same innocence and joy. Here are green hills, peaceful trees, kingdoms under mountains, moon runes, Dwarves, Elves, and hole-dwelling Hobbits. Three cheers for Tolkien! And three more for Peter Jackson and crew!

This blog entry began in one place and ended in another. Which, I guess, is the way of stories, and journeys, and adventures. “Can you guarantee that I will come back?” Bilbo asks. “No,” answers Gandalf. “And if you do, you will not be the same.”

God Bless the Storytellers

Posted on December 18, 2012 by fsdthreshold

At a time when our sad old world needs good stories more than ever, the makers of the just-released film The Hobbit have done us an invaluable service. I saw the movie this past Sunday afternoon, and from beginning to end, I was transported. I was in awe, entertained in the purest sense, inwardly laughing in joyous recognition at familiar lines and elements of this well-loved story, a tale which inhabits my life like an old, cherished friend. And I was captivated by new twists, by some unexpected interpretations — brought to the edge of my seat by the plights and heroics of Bilbo and his traveling companions, made to gasp and cringe and sigh and nearly cheer aloud. I can’t remember enjoying a movie this much since . . . well, since The Lord of the Rings.

But the moviemakers have learned so much since the shooting of LOTR! There was so much on which to build, so much design and technology already in place, and the state of the art now allowing for more. There was the experience of how audiences reacted to LOTR informing the writers and production crew on how to go about The Hobbit. And they rose to the challenge — oh, did they rise!

I had seen some Internet headlines in the days prior, headlines calling the quality of the new film into question. I didn’t read the articles, of course; I didn’t want to know any more about the film than I already knew from reading the book as a fifth-grader and from listening to it again on audiobook several months ago. A friend also pointed out to me that certain critics had attacked the movie for being slow-paced, padded in order to stretch a single novel into three big films, and — worst of all — for being filled with material that did not come from Tolkien himself. I am happy to report that, if critics said such things, they were wrong on every count.

It is true that the film includes abundant material that isn’t overtly a part of the book The Hobbit. But with a very few exceptions, this content is directly from Tolkien’s writing-hand — from LOTR, from the appendices to LOTR — and in some cases, quite cleverly and faithfully extrapolated from hints and outlines Tolkien supplied in his tale of Bilbo’s adventure.

Although The Hobbit was marketed as a children’s book, my viewing-companion noted that the film feels bigger, more epic, in a way, than LOTR did. I believe I would agree, and I think I understand why. With the passage of time, with reflection, the film-makers have apprehended a crucial key: that the works of Tolkien are all about milieu. And The Hobbit (movie) delivers the world of Middle-earth much more abundantly than the LOTR films did. I love those LOTR movies dearly, but they had so much to accomplish to satisfy audiences (which, to a phenomenal degree, they did — audiences of hardcore Tolkien fans and of first-time visitors to Middle-earth alike) that what usually got shortchanged was the setting. In the LOTR movies, fantastic though they are, I wanted to see much more of Moria . . . more of Rivendell . . . more of Lothlorien. In The Hobbit, we SEE Middle-earth in its glory! This is a milieu movie, and it comes across as huge.

Are there the Hollywoodish didoes and flourishes that inhabit all first-rank films nowadays? Yes. The treatment of Radagast is distinctly reminiscent of the world of Harry Potter. This first third of a single story is outfitted with amplifications of character, dramatic moments, and an arc to make it a satisfying movie experience. Is that a sin? Is it an abuse of the source material? By no means!

A great story is a great story: like the richest wine, it flows in and fills the vessel of the particular form in which it’s delivered. In the long history of told and written tales, our stories have always been adapted, reshaped in different media for different audiences. So it is with the movie version of The Hobbit. It is not the book — though the book is in perfect health, and still welcomes each new generation of readers to the tale that is exactly as Tolkien wrote it.

It is a stunning and wondrous movie that this reviewer intends to see as many times as resources allow.

“It’s a money-making ploy,” some have said: “repackage a single book as three films to increase profits.” Perhaps. Perhaps that was a factor in the decision to make The Hobbit in three parts. The moviemakers may also have understood that a run of three movies allows for a lot more of Tolkien’s vast creation to be brought to the screen. Three movies? I say, “Hip-hip Hooray!” We get to do it again! As in the days of LOTR, we will be privileged (Lord willing) to look forward to a Hobbit movie each year. Seriously — would anyone rather stop at just one?

The casting is brilliant. The music is superb. The storytelling is amazing, brought to us by J. R. R. Tolkien and by the crew of this most recent incarnation. “Adventures . . . make one late to dinner.” Come with me to the theater, folks. Let’s all be very, very late to dinner.

The Running of the Pumpkins

Posted on November 29, 2012 by fsdthreshold

Here’s a story for you, just so you’ll know I’m alive. [I’m still kickin’, taking life a day at a time, doing what I can. These are, to paraphrase the Dickens line, the best of times and the worst of times. Much more good, though, than bad, when I stop and count. God’s grace is sufficient. But on to our story!]

Late Wednesday night, I take out my trash and recycling, so it can be picked up on Thursday morning. The bags and recycling bin are properly placed in the alley behind the building. Now, my downstairs neighbors — bless them! — often seem to have a great abundance of garbage, and sometimes it doesn’t end up in quite the right place. I think what happened a couple weeks ago is that some of my neighbors’ bags slipped down through the gap between the alley surface and the fence, alighting in our backyard — where, of course, the trash collectors won’t and can’t pick them up.

As I set out my trash last night, I remembered those two stray bags of my neighbors’, and I decided to carry them through the gate and up into the alley, so that they could disappear, and our backyard would be the better for it. I gripped one bag, and it came along with me fine. But the other seemed rooted to the yard! I’d never encountered such a heavy garbage bag! It wasn’t particularly big, but it was full of something that took a herculean labor to budge. I finally managed it, half-dragging the bag, hefting it inch by inch across the yard . . .

I wrangled it up the concrete steps to the alley. I bore it safely through the gate. I was just a half-step away from dropping it into place with the other garbage bags . . . when the bottom ripped out of the bag, and I discovered the source of the great weight. Three very large pumpkins went bounding away down the steep alley! Bumpity bumpity bump! I don’t mean jack-o’-lanterns; I mean solid pumpkins. They bounced and thumped and zigzagged, following the contours of brick, asphalt, and pothole. Two went more or less to the right, one to the left, and all went a good way down the block from my gate, hopping and rolling in the bright moonlight. The night was chill.

Why my neighbors threw away three good, uncarved pumpkins, I’ll never know. All I knew was that it was bedtime, I was tired, I’m just about over a severe, lingering cough, no one really lives along that stretch of the alley, and I wasn’t inclined to go rounding up pumpkins in the early stages of decomposition. I simply took note of where they came to rest, decided it wasn’t going to cause any trouble, and sent them a silent congratulations for having escaped the garbage truck. One is in front of a little brake of saplings; one rests near an abandoned garage; one is half-buried in leaves against the chain-link fence. They’re nicely spaced along the alley: Advent decorations. Pukel-men. Moai. Disciples of the Great Pumpkin. Call them what you will, they are there. And pumpkins are organic, so they won’t be there forever. For a season, they adorn.

Speaking of pumpkins, which leads us to Dragonfly, I believe this can now be officially announced: the dear old book is very soon to become an audio book from Audible! I don’t know the precise form it will take, and I don’t know who will be reading it. I’m most eager to find out! But help me keep watch for it. It should be forthcoming quite soon; it’s contracted and I’ve been paid, so . . .

Sending warmth to all as the days grow colder and darker. Talk to you soon! Let us persevere!

 

World Fantasy 2012: Toronto

Posted on November 5, 2012 by fsdthreshold

I am safely back from the World Fantasy Convention, held this year in Toronto. Well . . . near Toronto. Well . . . not too far away from Toronto. I was told by a local attendee that, from the top of the convention hotel, you could in fact see the lights of Toronto in the distance.

A panel discussion about to get underway at World Fantasy 2012

I also learned my lesson about how (not) to make travel and lodging arrangements. It can be a good thing to find a package deal in which you buy airfare and hotel accommodations together at a discount; but pay attention to where the hotel you’re staying at is in relation to the hotel where the convention is being held. If it’s 34 kilometers away, you’re probably not staying in the best place. Fortunately, the helpful clerks at my hotel and at the con hotel eventually found a way for me to make the commute in a little under two hours (one way) on two buses, which ran until fairly late at night . . . but not so late that I got to stay at the convention until all hours, which is when much of the networking and most of the fun, random encounters with fellow con-goers take place. Hmm . . . my wording there could give the wrong impression. By “random encounters,” I mean you can walk into a party, and some editor you tremendously respect may be sitting around in a talkative mood, and you can end up getting an earful of history, wisdom, and other writerly information that you never expected. You can talk to other writers, book collectors, editors, agents, or artists in relaxed settings. I missed out on those late-night opportunities this year, because I was getting to know the buses of Toronto during those hours. But I must say, the city has excellent public transportation. And I got some reading done as I shivered in bus shelters, waiting.

Tim Powers on the Defining Urban Fantasy panel

The theme of this year’s convention was “Northern Gothic and Urban Fantasy.” That seemed appropriate to me, since it was held in a country that claims a vast chunk of the North (and yes, a Gothic chunk) — and in a city. And a panelist at some point noted how really urban a country Canada is, which I at least hadn’t thought much about before. There’s lots of wilderness — lots and lots of it — but the people are mostly gathered in cities . . . which is what cities are — places where people cluster . . .

As always, I had a great time catching up with old friends. One highlight this year came on Day One, when I made the acquaintance of Mr. Lawrence Santoro, who hosts Tales to Terrify. (http://www.talestoterrify.com) Check them out on-line! They have podcasts of strange, wondrous, and frightening stories. He’s an approachable, knowledgeable, personable, and interesting writer and narrator — I really enjoyed talking with him. And he would like to see a short-fiction submission from me — yay!

Left to right: David G. Hartwell and Guy Gavriel Kay

I’m going to go “stream of notes” in this report, jumping back and forth between experiences and ideas, things I jotted down when I heard them. I’m doing my best to verify them and bring you proper spellings as I go along. My apologies if any errors creep past me. I invite corrections. The beauty of on-line publishing is that errors don’t have to stay there forever and ever.

It seems that Saki wrote a story called “The Music on the Hill” which involves Pan. Hmm! I’d never heard of that one.

Something else to look up is a book called Landscape and Memory,  by Simon Schama. Reportedly, Schama discusses the changing role of the wilderness in literature. At different times in history, by writers in various places, the wilderness has been handled in opposite ways. The forest can be a good place or a very bad place. Is it an idyllic, healing place of pleasant enchantment, or is it the realm of evil?

“Vastation”: a word that’s in my Oxford dictionary but not my old Webster’s. Oxford says it’s a poetic/literary word that means the action or process of emptying or purifying someone or something, typically violently or drastically. It comes from the Latin vastare, “to lay waste.” Okay — very close on the family tree with devastate, devastation.

A redwood tree is an entire ecosystem. (True? Discuss!)

Charles de Lint, writer of wondrous mythic fiction; a Special Guest of this year's convention

Charles de Lint, when he’s writing from multiple points of view, listens to different music for each of the characters. It helps him to keep them differentiated.

To-read: The Blessing of Pan, by Dunsany.

Lovecraft was writing “urban fantasy” — “urban horror.” So was Bram Stoker, in Dracula. In their stories, fantastic and horror elements were present in the modern, realistic world as it was for those writers. It’s not a new concept.

Tim Powers, signing books

In his novels, Tim Powers uses settings from the real world — Rome, Los Angeles, etc. Fantastical and magical things happen, but those settings help to ground the reader; they help the reader to accept and believe the tale. Mr. Powers doesn’t want the reader to think, on Page 1, “Okay; this is a fantasy.” [“Fantasy, at its core, is bogus,” Powers said. “SF might happen someday, but fantasy is . . . fantasy!”] I liked how he described his process as using “real-world lumber” to “build” the book. It’s like the quote I used every year with my writing students: Marianne Moore said that genuine poetry is “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” You have to use enough stuff that the reader knows and can physically sense and understand. Then your unicorns or your dimensional portals have a surface to adhere to.

Tim Powers, when asked what kind of books he writes, answers, “Ghostly fantasy set in the real world.” He knows if he says “urban fantasy,” people will think “kick*ssheroine” — he thinks of it as one word, as if you can hit a single key, and the software will drop “kick*ssheroine” into the text. The panel brought up those scores of book covers that show the heroine from about her chin down to maybe her knees, and she’s wearing a form-fitting leather top, and she’s carrying some kind of big, formidable weapon, usually with a blade. Someone on the panel said, “That’s heroine abuse.” Heh, heh!

Ginjer Buchanan said that urban fantasy (the genre as it’s understood today) all traces back to Buffy. Yes! Wasn’t Buffy just about pop culture’s first weapon-wielding, ***-kicking heroine in a gritty city?

The panel brought up (as friends and I have laughed about before) how funny it is when people write vampire stories set in the modern, real world, in which the characters seem to have no awareness of the vampire as it exists in pop culture. “Two puncture wounds in the neck — whatever could have caused that?!” And apparently Dracula was never written, so the characters have to run to the library and do research in obscure books . . .

Ginjer Buchanan commented that fantasy is no longer a niche-y genre — it has now permeated the general culture. The young editors today have never known the time when fantasy was a niche. I’ve heard opinions on both sides as to whether or not that’s a good thing. Personally, I think it’s good — stories about imaginary places and creatures and objects can be sold to editors, and readers want to read them. That’s good, isn’t it? Good for us fantasy writers, and good for people, who need such stories.

Leland E. Modesitt, Jr.

Urban fantasy has really changed the landscape. It has broadened the field. Used to be that you couldn’t publish, for example, a mystery with ghosts in it, or a romance with a werewolf in it. Now you can, and they do well!

Tim Powers doesn’t usually write books in a series, because the more you write in one world, the more doors you close, the more you establish things you can’t do. You have more and more rules about your world that you have to keep track of. For him, starting a new book is like cleaning out the garage, making trips to the dumpster, and starting over all clean and full of potential. He wants a contrast, a change, with each new work — something different from what he was just working on before.

My question: Is it Canada as a whole that feels bathrooms need two doors to guard them? Or was it just the two out of two buildings I stayed in? Why is an “airlock” necessary? Why the need to fight through two heavy doors with your armload of stuff?

Patrick Rothfuss

The wanderer in literature is different from a traveler. The wanderer has an indeterminate identity — perhaps one that’s lost or changing. The wanderer comes with a sense of loss and sadness — s/he’s broken and rootless.

There’s an energy that builds up around people when they travel. They release it when they arrive. Hence, all the stories on the page and in film involving a stranger who comes to town. And the town is forever changed! The stranger brings knowledge from other places. Maybe other skills.

The panel spent a lot of time discussing Gandalf and coming back to him. He’s not a wanderer in the literary sense. Rather, the consensus was, he’s at home all over Middle-earth. He’s always going here and there to do a thing.

The vampire is a wanderer in time, cut off from his own home and era and people. Condemned to wander forever.

The wanderer cannot change but forces or invokes change on the surroundings.

Houdini was the first magician to wear ordinary evening dress. Before Houdini, stage magicians wore robes, turbans, and other garments intended to suggest the mystical Orient. Magic, in our usual consciousness, is what they do “over there” — in Faery, in the Orient, Beyond the Fields We Know. The wanderer brings the magic into our orderly world.

At the end, when the ring is destroyed and the war is over, Gandalf goes to talk with Tom Bombadil. Gandalf feels he’s been a rolling stone while Bombadil has gathered moss. Gandalf needs a dose of that calm stay-puttedness.

Left to right: S. T. Joshi and Richard Gavin

There’s a good picture! S. T. Joshi is widely believed to be the foremost H. P. Lovecraft scholar in the world. It was his wonderful review of Dragonfly that led to my meeting some of my best friends!

I found this quote to be the most comforting idea of this year’s convention. About knowing the tradition: “The more you know, the better, but don’t worry about it.” You don’t need context in order to write fiction. You do need context in order to discuss it.

Dickens would sit beside the typesetter, composing the next page while the typesetter was setting the previous, just-written one! And it’s evidently a good thing Dickens was there to explain, too, because his note-covered manuscripts were illegible in many places.

Since very old times, telling ghost stories at Christmastime was a custom. Dickens made it canonical. Shakespeare: “A sad tale’s best for winter.”

Reportedly “The Signalman” is a fantastic, scary Dickens story.

I had an unexpected and greatly enjoyable lunch conversation with Gordon Van Gelder, publisher and editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. That was another highlight!

Two amazing editors: John Joseph Adams and Gordon Van Gelder (left to right)

I found myself in an elevator with Garth Nix, and he shook my hand. Incredible, the people you brush shoulders with at World Fantasy!

Urban fantasy also owes a direct debt to John Campbell. As a young editor, when he took over Astounding, he wanted to distinguish it from Weird Tales and the others, so he constantly asked for stories set in cities and not in the past. There you go: urban fantasy is . . . if not born, then definitely given a progression of bottles!

Tim Powers talked about how there are two ways of approaching urban fantasy. There’s the type in which the magical elements are up front, in the open, and everyone knows about them. The cop has a partner who’s a werewolf. The Yellow Pages have ads for vampire exterminators. And then there’s the type of urban fantasy in which the world seems “normal,” but clues emerge that suggest there’s weird stuff going on, and it has been going on for some time, though most people aren’t aware of it. Powers prefers this second type of story (as do I), because it comes with a sense of wonder.

Urban fantasy is hard to define exactly, because there’s a state of confusion regarding it. It has blurry edges. Does “urban” now mean “contemporary”? — because there are stories that fit the pattern except that they’re not set in cities. Charles de Lint made the point that the language is always changing. You can say something is “bad English,” but in a few years, it may not be, so you might as well go with the flow. Pay attention to what people are saying and writing, and don’t lose sleep over words and usages and genres that change.

Darrell Schweitzer

Mr. Schweitzer up there had a good line on Friday night: describing the practice of hawking books, he said, “I perform cashectomies.” He was also wearing an excellent pin (like a campaign button) that read, “Occupy R’lyeh!” Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh! [Guess I’d better explain that for non-Lovecraft fans. R’lyeh is the unspeakable city, now drowned and forgotten deep beneath the sea, where Great Cthulhu lies dreaming. According to Lovecraft’s tales, R’lyeh will rise again “when the stars are right,” and Cthulhu and all the Great Old Ones will awaken.]

Darrell Schweitzer signing a book for a fan

In addition to being a tremendous writer, award-winning editor, and respected literary critic, Mr. Schweitzer has a hilarious sense of humor. I once heard him describe himself as “a dealer in bargain-rate antiquities.” And he generally has a pocket full of them!

The vampire, according to one panel, has become completely uninteresting. Someone speculated that the vampire is “simply the Byronic hero writ large.” Tim Powers immediately came back with: “I don’t think the contemporary vampire is the Byronic hero. I think he’s the sixth Xeroxed copy of Byron writ small.” The audience burst into applause.

Byron, Powers noted, lent his legacy to characters such as James Bond.

“Urban fantasy,” after all, is a marketing term, not a literary/critical one. Marketing has decided that urban equals contemporary. Most people live in cities now. Marketing works in cities. Therefore . . .

Writers don’t, or shouldn’t, sit down to write something in a “category.” You write a book — a good book. You write something you like. It has funny bits, scary bits, etc.

You can’t put a silencer on a revolver. It doesn’t work.

“Reality is a crutch for people who can’t handle fantasy.”

David Drake (right)

About keeping fantasy plausible: One general principle is that you’re allowed one piece of “baloneyum” per story — one thing that’s really not possible. You can slide it by as long as it’s not too glaring, and as long as you’ve gotten the other elements of your story right, accurate, factual, well developed, etc. Readers will forgive (and perhaps enjoy) the piece of baloneyum.

Related example: dirigibles really aren’t practical for the way they’re used in most books and stories that use them. You can’t control them very well; they’re vulnerable, slow, and can’t really carry much. But they’re romantic and picturesque — atmospheric. So we like them in steampunk.

“You can’t be an expert on everything, but do enough homework so that the real experts will cut you some slack.”

You have to think through the consequences of any departures from reality you make in your story. If your pre-technological society has a way of traveling by air, how does that change the way people live and do business? Who controls the means? How do they use it?

This was significant: Be very careful of how you’re treating a different world and culture. Are you looking at it through 21st-century American glasses? Do you want to be doing that? Are you imposing your values onto this other culture? To avoid doing it (assuming you want to avoid doing it), study those times, if they’re real, historic times. How did the people then think about themselves?

Primitive doesn’t mean stupid. People in the past weren’t dumber. Romans gave their children wine because the water wasn’t safe.

Run your ideas past experts! “It’s what you think you know that will get you killed.”

Read Soldiers and Ghosts, by a writer named Lendon. It’s an excellent resource for writing about ancient cultures, warfare, etc. For example, the Romans had no concept of the forward march of progress. They thought the world had hit its ideal during the times Homer described, and they were trying to get back to that.

Guy Gavriel Kay

Archaeologists recently found the bones of Richard III, and he was under a car park.

Holly Black on changelings: We, in our lives, often feel like outsiders. The changeling story represents and explores that.

Bridget Cleary was a real historic person who was killed for being a changeling. Holly Black notes that, whether she was or wasn’t one, the situation is fascinating. “The Witch-Burning at Clonmel” can be Googled. There’s apparently some evidence that she was having an affair with another man while her husband was often away. The conservative community couldn’t accept the scandal of that, so they had to find a way to make Bridget an “other.” She was Fey. The Fey had switched her. In fact, Bridget wasn’t there at all — this creature they doused with purifying urine and burned on the stove was a monster, a forgery, so it was all right. That was their reasoning. See also The Burning of Bridget Cleary.

“Every great story is about death.” (Someone at the con claimed that’s a Tolkien quote. Anyone? True? Not true?)

A friend of mine in Japan said, “The way of the samurai is to die.”

Graham Joyce, an awesome writer, scholar, and panelist I’ve heard before (when he brought up and expounded on the old song “Twa Corbies” at World Fantasy in Calgary), was on this panel about changelings, and he absolutely refused to say the word we modern folk commonly use to name the Good Folk . . . the Other Folk . . . the Fey (“Fey” is all right to say). You know the word I mean: the one that begins with “f” and ends in “y.” There’s one that leaves coins in place of children’s lost teeth — okay? Well, I don’t think Mr. Joyce is superstitious — just respectful of the Fey.

Graham Joyce was talking about how the Other Folk appear. He doesn’t like the artist’s renditions of them with pointed ears. He says they’re constantly changing, and they may look just like us. Consider these expressions we use all the time:

“He wasn’t himself.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

“Something came over me.”

The changeling story is at the dark heart of what it is to be human. We don’t understand ourselves. What do we see in the mirror?

Holly Black again: We humans want something more than what we are and have. We fear having come to the end, and still not having enough. The changeling story addresses that need. “Oh, I must have been adopted. I’m not like these people.” [Wow! I’m thinking just now that even Harry Potter rides on the fender of that longing!] [Also, I was thinking of C. S. Lewis and his reasoning about how we have longings for which there is no fulfillment in this world. If the longing can exist, the fulfillment of it must exist somewhere. And if it’s not to be found in this world, then logically, it must be in another . . . and therefore, there must be a world beyond this one.] Back to Holly Black: The Fey represent the miraculous in us — creativity, etc.

David Drake

We all write the same story over and over, Holly Black says. The one she writes over and over is “walking between worlds.” Can a person exist with a foot in each of two worlds? [Remember the case of the Green Children.]

Why do the Other Folk want to kidnap human children, anyway? Is it because “Fey blood is thin”? Do they need us to strengthen their stock? Are we psychically interdependent? Would one race perish without the other? Do our dreams need us? That’s precisely the theme I explore in my poem “Strangers” on page 57 of my little purple book. Audience members suggested that they might be rescuing our children; or that we’re interesting to them — we’re the “Other Folk.”

Finally, the changeling tale is a coming of age story. As you grow up, you may not be what your parents expect you to be! Lots to examine there!

A "reunion" of writers published in the late, great, cherished TWILIGHT ZONE: Scott Edelman, Nancy Baker, Darrell Schweitzer, Lawrence C. Connolly, and Elizabeth Hand

A funny criticism of Twilight: “These vampires have been ‘alive’ for hundreds of years, and the best thing they can find to do is go to high school?!”

Last words of the last panel I heard at the con this year: “Buffy rules!”

One other highlight was something unlike the typical programming of a convention. When I saw that my writer-friend Patty Templeton (who kindly interviewed me last year for Black Gate and for the blog of the library she works at) was doing a reading, I put it onto my calendar. Patty read with a group of three other astoundingly talented writer/singer/artist/performer/instrumentalists who call themselves The Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadours. Specifically, they are: C. S. E. Cooney, Amal El-Mohtar, Caitlyn Paxson, and Patty Templeton. The room was packed to overflowing, even though the hotel staff made a last-minute change in the venue. And we the audience were blown away! These Troubadours baked cookies to pass among the listeners. They painted a backdrop to decorate the wall. They played a banjo on one song and a harp on another, and they sang their original songs in lovely, ethereal harmony. They read powerful, sophisticated selections of their fiction, each piece greatly different from the others, yet artfully balanced. Their work made me think, “Yeah! This is real fantasy writing!” They supported each other with chanted responses to key lines, like a Greek chorus. It awed me that they completely overspilled the confines of one medium and hit us with at least five different talents, each one of which could have made a complete show on its own, but all woven together. Really, they should all quit their day jobs and take the show on the road — it was that good! Yay, Claire, Amal, Caitlyn, and Patty! Hurrah, hurrah!

Mr. Lawrence C. Connolly, writer, musician, and instructor located not far from Pittsburgh; contributor to TWILIGHT ZONE

So, a great World Fantasy Convention, this one in 2012!

Scott Edelman -- See how this works? These are the TWILIGHT ZONE people then and now; their photos from when their stories appeared are projected on the screen behind them.

I had a very nice time at dinner Saturday evening with the literary agency that represents me. They kindly host such a dinner each year at World Fantasy for the clients who are attending. It was great to talk with older friends and to meet some of the new people who have just signed on. And it’s always wonderful to catch up with the people from the agency!

Darrell Schweitzer

That’s just about it . . .

Nancy Baker

And this is it! We’ll close with this photo of this year’s Author Guest of Honour:

World Fantasy Convention 2012: Author Guest of Honour Elizabeth Hand

 

 

Rat Kin

Posted on October 9, 2012 by fsdthreshold

Yesterday at work, my colleagues and I witnessed a captivating drama unfolding. During a minor mechanical breakdown, some of us wandered over to the railing along the front edge of our second-floor balcony, from which we had a view of the plant’s main floor below us. We were hoping to get a clue as to the nature and duration of the delay. Our line boss Punkin has a radio, but communications arrive that way only about half the time. Often it becomes a matter of watching what guys in the distance are doing, or receiving long-distance hand signals.

Anyway, we had a view down onto the main floor conveyor belt, on which loads of trash were being carried along the gallery and up a slope to the pinnacle, about twenty feet in the air, at which point the trash was going over the falls and was lost to our sight, like the Moldau River.

And we quickly noticed that a large rat was on the belt, apparently foraging for food among the cans and containers. It was harrowing to watch him, because again and again, he was transported right up to the precipice, where the belt’s contents spilled toward an unknown fate. (I’ve never investigated where stuff goes when it passes beyond our reach . . . though I once proposed the theory to a fellow temp that it goes into a hopper from which a payloader brings it around back to the beginning of the Greenstar pipeline, and that which was becomes that which is — there is no new thing under the sun.) But whether the rat would have plummeted into grinding, compacting machinery or not, at the very least, if he’d gone over the edge, he would have had a long fall.

The belt, about six feet wide, is transected every eight feet or so by a vertical barrier about six inches high. These bafflers keep objects from sliding backward down the belt when it climbs. They were also just high enough that the rat would dash up to one and think, it seemed, that he could go no farther . . . and he’d make a U-turn and dart straight back up toward the brink of possible annihilation.

But it became clear that the rat also had acute perception and amazing reflexes. When he’d find himself right at the top, where the world fell away, he would scamper back down again, hopping over the baffling walls, poking his sharp nose into more soup tins and pizza boxes — left, right, diagonal . . . up the belt, down the belt. Three or four times, his human audience was sure he was a goner, and a collective cry went up. But each time, the rat re-emerged from the vanishing garbage and raced back downward.

Most of the guys seemed greatly amused by the rat’s antics and predicament, but I was terrified for the rat. I wanted him to leap off the belt at the floor level and find safety among the deep, undisturbed warrens. I felt a kinship with him. He seemed to be illustrating our human condition, especially we who work in places such as recycling plants.

We forage; we follow our senses; we scuttle here and there in search of small opportunities. But the inexorable forces of the world pull us higher, higher, toward the great fall into the dark. Bills . . . taxes . . . the passing of time . . . the mortality of our cars and our bodies . . . the horrible white winter, which already has its fangs sunk deep into October . . . To stand still is to succumb. So we do the rat dance, scurrying and scurrying. Fortunately, we are not without help. The machines themselves may be passionless and impartial, but I believe in the Hand that set the machines in motion, and can stop them at any time. It is a Hand of kindness and power.

After a time, our engines started again, the paper belts moved, and no one saw what became of the rat. Judging by his escapades, I’d say there’s quite a fair chance that he lived to forage another day, for he seemed to be a master of the belt, not ignorant of its workings — this is his world, where belts move and engines growl, where cats lurk and men point at rats and say, “There goes your man!”

These thoughts remind me of one of my favorite scenes in all of cinema. It’s in the old movie The River, starring Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek. Nice soundtrack, too! Anyway, the main characters are farmers who struggle to survive along the banks of a river that brings life to their crops, but can also bring destruction. In a particularly bad year, when the crops fail, Mel Gibson and many others like him are forced to find any work they can. He signs on with several truckloads of “scabs” — strike-breakers, who are brought into factories at which the regular employees are on strike, trying to get better conditions from the owners. Naturally, these scabs are extremely unpopular with the regular workers, who throw things at them, rattle the chain-link fences, and shout obscenities — “You’re taking our jobs!”

So, under terrible conditions, the scabs go to work, and the factory keeps running. One day, in the sleepless, infernal darkness of the steel mill, the men notice that a wild deer has somehow wandered in from the sparse woodland outside. Lost, disoriented, the deer stumbles through the labyrinth of gears and belts, its panic increasing.

Excited, the men shout, “Let’s get it!” They deploy themselves, their hunter instincts taking over. They surround the deer, cutting off its retreat. Finally, the animal stands trapped within a ring of sweaty, hungry, tired, sad, desperate, unshaven men. There is no escape. The deer stares at the men; the men stare at the deer. The creature is so terrified that its bladder lets go.

No one says a word, but somehow, in that moment of witnessing the deer’s terror, the men see themselves reflected in its eyes. They, too, are surrounded by a sea of hostiles. They, too, only want to live. They, too, are in need of mercy and miracles.

Acting in unison, the men slowly move their circle, keeping it intact, herding the deer along in their midst. They thread through the maze of smoke and furnaces to the open bay door of the factory. There, they open the circle and allow the deer to run back into the forest.

We live in a world of darkness, but it is not an abandoned world. When the fulness of time had come, God sent a Savior. So, too, He orders our paths and opens the circle at the right time, delivering us from our rat dance, restoring us to the green woods.

As the autumn deepens, let us remember mercy: that which we receive, and which we may in turn give.

Long Shadow Season

Posted on October 7, 2012 by fsdthreshold

It’s hitting me that we’re suddenly in October again! This year it padded softly up behind me, hiding behind the green cloaks of summer, and wham! — snarl! — it bowled me over like Hobbes meets Calvin at the door. My dear old friend October, with its yellow-orange eyes and claws of steel, its fur and bones, its leathern wings . . . it flew at me from the cave at summer’s end and has me pinned in the sere grass. It’s breathing in my face and demanding to be noticed.

And who could fail to notice October when it occupies the chair? I was driving north yesterday to a happy occasion, and I was in awe of the hills around me, these hills of western Pennsylvania — so vibrant and splashed with the russet and yellow, the red, purple, and green from God’s palette! [First chance I get, when the sun is shining, I’ll have to get you some pictures of Frick Park in fall.]

So, October is here, and to kick off the season, I am going to take an excellent suggestion from our friend Marquee Movies. I’m going to do this blog’s first-ever reprint. Don’t feel gypped. It’s been four years now since I wrote the following account, and seven years since the events it describes. If you want to revisit the original blog entry and its comments, you can find it easily by typing “A Writer’s Life in October” into the search window — it’s in the archives. I’ve spruced it up a little here, so the new version is not quite the same as the old.

Anyway, here it is: my most memorable Hallowe’en . . .

One Hallowe’en I’ll never forget was 2005. That was the year my mom unexpectedly passed away on October 18. I flew back to the States to be with Dad and for the funeral and all. On the day of the funeral, the town was breathtakingly gorgeous — trees a miraculous palette of brilliant reds and golds. The procession of cars to the cemetery was the grandest Hallowe’en parade one could hope for — couldn’t have ordered a better day for Mom’s last ride through the town she loved. I saw a whole lot of friends and relatives that I don’t normally see — all very loving and friendly, all gazing into Eternity and aware of the brevity of life, all with an awareness of how much my mom meant to them. A surreal time, when I’m normally teaching but wasn’t that year.

The town was decked out in Hallowe’en glory: fake tombstones like gray toadstools in yards; chokingly thick webs in trees, covering bushes; scarecrow figures, jack-o’-lanterns, ghoul dummies, witches, oddities, orange lights . . .

I bought Hallowe’en candy, which yanked an inlay out of my tooth, and I had to go to the dentist. I bought pumpkins — big, orange pumpkins, so abundant and cheap in Illinois, so rare and expensive in Japan. I carved them, and my dad smiled. He said they looked like a couple, this one male, that one female. I took pictures of them.

I took the jack-o’-lanterns to my aunt’s house, because she has the best location ever for trick-or-treaters — no kidding. She’s right on the main street, in the safest neighborhood in town, where parents trust and everyone is home in well-lighted houses, and kids flock thicker than clouds in August. We set the jack-o’-lanterns on the porch and lit them. We set out my aunt’s Indian mannequins: a man and a woman (though the woman is really a smaller man wearing a wig and a dress — a native American transvestite). They have feathers and moccasins and fringe, and older kids love them, and middle-kids gaze at them in uncertainty, and babies fear them and bawl, but still their moms carry them to the porch to receive their Hallowe’en treats. I am proud of how some kids whisper to each other about my jack-o’-lanterns — “Look at their pumpkins!”

My aunt lets me hand out the candy. We are both still somewhat numb in this world without my mom. My aunt makes popcorn, and we eat it in the brief intervals between visitors. The intervals are brief — we have something like 150 kids the first night and nearly 100 the next. We run out of candy and have to buy more for the second night. My aunt keeps a tally, making a mark on paper for every kid that comes to the door. We laugh in the quiet lulls and talk about how many of the girls seem to be dressed as hookers. There’s vampire hooker, witch hooker, and just plain hooker.

One of the most amazing things is how kids appear out of the night. They materialize from the darkness out by the street. Some cut straight across yards, through the drifts of dry leaves, crunch, crunch, crunch. But some — usually boys — RUN from the curb, a skeleton or a Scream-masked horror swooping toward our porch. Kids stand under the street lights, comparing loot, plotting their courses. Tall witch hats tip and bob as they speak. Many carry little sticks that glow in phosphorescent colors.

I comment on the kids’ costumes to them (though I avoid saying things like, “Oh! A hooker!”). Isn’t it odd how most kids seem oddly uninterested in their costumes? One girl has a knife through her head, with blood trickling down her temples. I say, “Wow. You might want to have that looked at.”

I’m wearing a flannel shirt. For some reason, that sticks in my mind — that shirt, in that surreal October of grief and the Otherworld. Candy, candles, trick-or-treaters. Dragonfly hits the mass market that year; it’s in stores, in Barnes & Noble, in Waldenbooks. I’m making it as a writer. I sit in a rocking chair opposite the door. I make the decisions about how much candy to put into each bag. My aunt sits off to the side,  making her tally marks, watching through the picture window as I watch through the door.

Toward the end of the evening, when the visitors trail off, and we’re eating the unpopped kernels that can break your teeth if you’re not careful, my aunt wants to call it quits. But I insist on staying open for business until the end of the time the city allows. You never know when a ghoul got caught on some barbed wire and was delayed; you never know when a descending witch got snagged in some tree branches. I’m so low on candy that I can only put two or three pieces of boring stuff into each bag, and I see a few frowns and curled lips. But I want to stay as long as I can in my flannel shirt, up and down from my rocking chair, watching the dark, listening for the whisper and giggle of stragglers. A few bigger kids come, kids too old to be trick-or-treating — but, like me, clinging to this night.

This night. Hallowe’en. This year, this 2005, I’m halfway through writing “The Bone Man.” Mom passed away during the restaurant scene, and I got a phone call in Japan from the coroner, because no one else in my family could make the international phone number work. “The Bone Man” will go on to receive honors — publication in Fantasy & Science Fiction [Dec. 2007], translation into Russian, mentions in Year’s Best anthologies, from Dozois as a science-fiction tale and from Datlow as a fantasy/horror story. It will be on the ballot for Locus and for the International Horror Guild in their last-ever round of awards. It’s on the ballot against a Steven Millhauser story. I will hear from a woman in France who is fascinated by the story’s look at rural life in the American Midwest. A couple people nominate it for a Nebula. Wonder and love and family, sadness, childhood, adulthood . . . Japan, the U.S. . . . life, death, loss, success, crisp air, the imagination . . . I’m halfway to orphanhood and will get there in another four months. I’m nobody’s kid anymore. The buck stops here.

Everything flows together. The world turns toward winter, but on these nights, we’re linked to the earliest times, the beginnings. “We are all storytellers,” said Paul Darcy Boles, “sitting around the cave of the world.”

“Why don’t you write a Hallowe’en story?” a friend of mine in Japan suggested at the beginning of that October, when I was feeling down and agonizing over what to write. So I started to write “The Bone Man” just to distract myself. Just to have fun.

Yeah . . . as wonderful as my childhood Hallowe’ens were, I think 2005 was my Hallowe’en, the one I’ll never forget.

 

New York Author Visits

Posted on October 2, 2012 by fsdthreshold

I had a fantastic and blessed time in upper central New York last week, visiting schools and a library to talk about writing!

An amazing, conscientious librarian (herself a writer) had some grant money to spend, and she contacted me out of the blue to see if I’d be interested in being one of the authors to visit her community of Homer, New York, this fall. Of course I jumped at the chance! I have to thank our own Morwenna here. This librarian found my new book release in the SCBWI Bulletin — and it was our Morwenna, true friend and dedicated follower of this blog, who urged me to let the Bulletin know about the book’s publication. So without Morwenna, this gig in New York would not have come about! Thank you, M.!

Now, get this: in the lineup of authors, one of the others is Tamora Pierce! So I was one of four visiting Homer this autumn, and another of the four is Tamora Pierce. It’s kind of like how, on shelves in the fantasy sections of bookstores, “Durbin” gets shelved next to “Dunsany.”

Anyway, I was selected precisely because I’m not famous. Heh, heh! Apparently some other authors backed out, and the librarian saw me, and I was very affordable (I’d talk to people about writing for free if I had the chance). Let’s give her a name: Priscilla. Priscilla said she chose me because she wanted to introduce the kids to a writer they didn’t yet know, whose books they hadn’t yet devoured. She very generously offered me a stipend that was far more than I would have made at Greenstar that week, plus she put me up in the Holiday Inn Express!

As it turned out, my car was due for annual inspection (Pennsylvania state law), so I did that on Monday. The mechanic informed me that I had big problems. The ominous groaning and grinding I’d been hearing was not a matter of loose plastic rubbing against the wheel, as I’d hoped. My car was about to lose a ball joint. I’d never heard people talk about the ball joints on their cars before I moved here, and now I hear about them all the time. Pittsburgh is terribly hard on ball joints, with its ubiquitous potholes. So anyway, I couldn’t drive my car out of town. The joint could have broken at any time, which would have been catastrophic: loss of steering, loss of the front axle. So I had to rent a car. That was safe and made for a very pleasant trip — nice, new engine, no worries, and a splendid CD player, so I was in music Heaven as I cruised along admiring the fall foliage. But the profit I would have made from the grant was more than swallowed up by renting a car and paying my mechanic for repairs. Oh, well . . . nothing can subtract from the experience and the value of talking to young people about how to unlock their inner writers. As I said, I’d do it for free. I’d do it at a financial loss. I did it!

I spent Monday and Tuesday preparing. Three cheers for Staples! You can have them make fantastic posters for you — take in a Word document on a flash drive, and they can print out big, professional-looking visual aids.

Wednesday, I drove north and east, across parts of Pennsylvania and New York. Spectacular scenery — the perfect time of year to travel!

I also have to praise the Holiday Inn Express. They offer the most incredible “free” breakfasts — eggs in various styles, day by day — sausage patties, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, cereal, yoghurt, juices, milk, biscuits and gravy, coffee on tap 24 hours a day . . . they know how to be a hotel. (“An hotel,” Hagiograph says.) Very nice to start the day with a solid meal.

On Thursday morning, Priscilla arrived to meet me and lead me to the elementary school in nearby Truxton, where I spoke to a large group of fourth- through sixth-graders.

At 4:00 that afternoon, I conducted a workshop at the Phillips Free Library in Homer for a group of young people in grades 4-8, most of whom were already interested in writing fantasy and are actively engaged in it. Some of the kids from the morning talk at Truxton came, which astonished me! They came back for more! Priscilla ordered pizza, and I had a delightful time after the workshop eating pizza and talking with two young guys who reminded me so much of myself at that age — burgeoning writers delighted to find an adult conversant in all things Tolkien, who agrees that LOTR is the real deal. We had a good laugh about how the seven rings for the Dwarf-lords had very little effect. There are no Dwarf Nazgul; that’s for sure! The rings only made them a little more Dwarvish. They became a little more proud and secretive; they loved their wrought metals and hoarded gold a little more. But in general, they cared not a whit for what was going on outside their mountain fastnesses, so they were of no use at all to Sauron. Yeah! And of course, the three rings Celebrimbor made . . . the hand of Sauron never touched them.

Anyway, the Main Event was that night. The grant was primarily for the presentation I did for the general public at the Phillips Free Library, and it was well-attended! The seats were filled, and some people were standing! My talk was called “Worlds From Words: The Joy of Writing Fantasy for Children.” I spoke about writing for kids, how I got started as a writer, about writing fantasy in general, and about my writing process. The supportive crowd had many excellent questions and seemed to come away energized and inspired. And I was truly blown away and humbled by Priscilla’s introduction of me. She read The Star Shard between the time she found me and the time I arrived in Homer, and she loved it!

When the talk was over, we had a book-signing, and I was kept joyfully busy! The local independent bookstore had plenty of copies of The Star Shard, and I even sold a couple of Dragonfly paperbacks that I’d brought along.

I basked in the atmosphere of the Phillips Free Library — it’s a lovely building, with pillars and a mezzanine where the YA section is housed, and a basement restored from its coal-furnace days, but still with the original brickwork, now scrubbed and handsome. From the enthusiastic crowd, I could tell how much a part of the community the library is, and how diligent the librarian and her staff are in celebrating reading and doing their utmost to make the library a happening place. As I was setting up, there were story hours going on . . . and the fall lineup of authors visiting is simply staggering! I wish I could have stayed there all autumn!

On Friday, I spoke to three groups of about 40 fourth-graders each at the Homer Intermediate School. Again, delightful! They had me speaking in a state-of-the-art auditorium, which is probably the most exciting room I’ve ever talked in. The kids were into it and asked excellent questions.

“Out of the mouths of babes,” they say. One young man in one of the three groups summarized an answer I’d given about the process of trying to get your work published. “So, just write good stories,” he said. Yes. Just write good stories.

I left them with the Paul Darcy Boles quote: “We are all storytellers sitting around the cave of the world.” We who write are engaged in the oldest and most fundamental human activity. We are one with our ancestors, who huddled around fires in the caves and told stories for inspiration, comfort, and entertainment as the wild beasts prowled in the dark outside. We are linked with people of other times, other countries, the past, present, and future. Our stories can outlive us. We make something where nothing existed before — lasting substance out of blank paper, out of invisible thoughts. We change the world for the better.

Finally, on Friday night, Priscilla hosted a reception at her house. With all the work done, I had the joy and honor of meeting the local writers’ group. We had fantastic food and sat around her living room, talking about writing, cryptozoology, books, movies, and the history of the region until all hours. It was a truly wonderful evening!

Then the next day, I drove back through the Allegheny National Forest, through the gold and russet and amber and red and green, back to other adventures, back to the telling of tales. This was a week to remember. I hope I inspired, and I came away inspired. I need to work my way back to teaching — that’s where it’s at!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Music and the Two Freds

Posted on September 20, 2012 by fsdthreshold

This is a brief post to let you all know that I’m still among the living. Life has been busy lately — full of blessings, but all-consuming. Will write more soon, but for now, two important things:

First, here are links to the two songs from The Star Shard. The composer, Dorothy VanAndel Frisch, is performing them on these tracks. So this is your chance to hear what they sound like! Many thanks to Dorothy for composing the music in the first place, for making these recordings, and for posting them for the enjoyment of all who enter here!

http://www.soundcloud.com/dorothy-vanandel-frisch/the-green-leaves-of-eireigh

http://www.soundcloud.com/dorothy-vanandel-frisch/blue-were-her-eyes

I’m sure we’d both love to hear what you all think!

Next: two dear old friends visited me recently, and we found at last the elusive statue of Mr. Rogers. Check this out!

Two Freds in Pittsburgh

I have to say, it’s the oddest texture for a statue I’ve ever seen. It comes across better in the photo, actually. In person, he looks rather like a mud monster. But you can tell that’s our dear Mr. Rogers!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood!

Some information on the statue explains that it’s made of a material that will last many thousands of years. So, millennia from now, this smiling mud monster will still be here on the site of ancient Pittsburgh, still a tribute to a great man who did so much to help and educate children.

Early September, 2012

And that’s it for now! This coming week, I’m off to Homer, New York, to be a visiting author at some schools and the public library! More about that next time!

"I'll be back when the week is new, and I'll have more ideas for you. You'll have things you'll want to talk about; I will, too."

‘Bye, neighbors!

 

Event Threshold

Posted on August 29, 2012 by fsdthreshold

We’d gone several weeks at Greenstar without a serious breakdown. We’d had the little, uncertain ones where they keep us around while they fix things. But yesterday we had the kind where they throw up their hands and say, “Send everyone home!” I was home and cleaned up by noon, and I put the day to very good use, running errands that had to be run during business hours. Among other things, I finally have toner in my printer’s cartridge again!

Today in that final two-hour stretch after lunch, everything went down, and an eerie silence settled over the behemoths. Ralph and I busied ourselves with scooping overflow debris off the floor onto the belt and sorting it out. But the belt wasn’t moving. Then Punkin got the word on the radio clipped to his shirt — down. “We’re down. We’re down.” The universal long-distance hand signal for this is the thumbs-down — you know, like for killing a defeated gladiator. That gesture. The universal symbol for break time is to mimic breaking a stick in two. We always look to Punkin for these signals that govern our days. At cleanup time, he always orders two temps to follow me to the clutter-catching chamber beneath our deck — always the same, but he always gives the order, and we don’t leave the deck until he gives it.

Well, when the “down” signal came today, Punkin sent Ralph and me over the rails to clean the catwalks — yes! I love the catwalks.

Dan (the awesome line boss from the other line) had just handed me a broom from the gantry above for no reason that I could fathom. Since I work in the front position below that catwalk, guys are often handing me things from the upper realm, and sometimes it’s a real challenge figuring out what I’m supposed to do with them. I’ll be working, and I’ll hear a loud “YO!” Someone is there, wanting to hand me something. So I’ll clamber up onto the rails and receive it. If it’s a tool, usually there’s a reason, and someone is waiting for it. Sometimes it’s a porno magazine, in which case I dutifully receive it, hand it across to Ralph, and he passes it on to Yum-Yum — who sometimes waves it away. Interestingly, I’ve heard guys refer to such magazines as “books.” They’ll say, “Hand me those books!”

So anyway, I had this broom from Dan, so I handed it to Ralph, and I grabbed a shovel off the wall — it was the only tool. We each have a catwalk on our own side, always smothered in the trash that falls from the feed chute. I clambered down onto mine with my shovel, and I noticed there was another temp working at the far end. I was just freely shoveling the stuff down into the chamber below (making sure no one was working below me), since I figured we’d be cleaning that out later. Gravity is our partner: we clean what’s high, then we clean what’s low.

The other temp came up to me with a nervous air and said, “They told me to throw the stuff onto that belt.” He pointed to the belt below us, on Dan’s side of the wall. I cheerfully said, “Okay,” and began directing my shovelfuls onto that belt. The guy looked relieved. I don’t know why, but many of the temps are like that — they seem to think I’m some sort of boss, like they’re afraid I’m going to yell at them.

When the catwalks were done, Ralph and I descended and cleaned out the debris chamber. We still had about an hour to go to the end of the shift. He went out front, and I knew it was time to look for Gizmo.

Gizmo was actively seeking me out. He plucked the shovel from my hands, leaned it against a wall, and said, “I have the perfect job for you. You’re the guy for this. I told ’em I’d send ’em the best.” He urgently beckoned me to follow, and I wondered what it could be that involved no tools. But he was fairly hopping with excitement. Back we went, through the catacombs, and he pointed up a long yellow stairway to a yellow bridge that crossed before a gray fuse box to a battered hopper, high and remote. He gave me my instructions. When I got up there, he said, I’d see a maintenance man. (They wear red hardhats.) Then I’d know what to do.

I went up the stairs, and at the landing, I met Howard coming down. “How’s it going?” he asked, looking kind of dazed.

When I got up there, I realized the enormity of where I’d been sent. This was the Event Threshold . . . Ground Zero. The point of the breakdown, where things had gone foul and brought “Texas-based giant Greenstar” to a standstill. I always wondered where and how this happens. Now I was seeing it.

I was face-to-face with the Greater Boss, John. I should have said, “Hello, Mr. R___!” but instead, what came out was a surprised, merry, “Oh, hi!” He didn’t seem to mind. He greeted me in much the same way. The red hat was inside the hopper, digging out cans and bottles with his hands. Gizmo had told me to help him, but there was no way to get inside the space with a guy already in there.

I looked questioningly at John. “He’ll get tired soon,” he said with a grin, meaning that then I could go in and spell him. So there I was, standing next to John, doing absolutely no work at all, waiting. It felt weird. John will fire guys for standing and leaning on their brooms. He fired three temps this week for not wearing ear plugs — they got sent home with DNRs — “Do Not Return”s. The red hat didn’t seem to be getting tired. I wondered if I was really supposed to be there, at the center of things. Then the awesome line boss Dan appeared in the narrow space behind the machine. He’d been trying to drag junk out from the back of it. Now John turned to me and said, “Take that broom and clear all that stuff out.” I should have said, “Yes, sir!” but what I said was a bright, “Okay!”

I’m a doofus when it comes to protocol. I once rubbed elbows in a cafeteria line with the President of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod — the top man of our international church body. I confess that I did not have a clue who he was — just some distinguished Lutheran guy at the International Center in St. Louis. He said, “Hi!” in a way that seemed to suggest, “If you would like to say something to me or ask a question, this is your chance!” I asked, “Is this decaf coffee?” (In retrospect, I don’t know why on Earth I asked that. I’ll drink either, decaf or caf.) He looked a little puzzled and said, “Yes. Yes, it is.” That’s probably one question that no gung-ho young missionary had yet asked him.

Dan told me to hold off a minute while he used the broom handle to knock trash out from the back end of the machine. This was all very close quarters — not enough room to pick up a cat, let alone swing one.

Then Spider looked around the corner of the hood. I was up there at the Event Threshold with John, Spider, and Dan. You simply do not get any closer to the crucial center of things. “All right,” Dan said, thrusting the broom into my hands. “Pull all this sh** out of here and push it down those stairs.”

I nodded and jumped to it.

Do you have any idea how satisfying it is to shove great waves of cans and bottles down a metal access stairway?! Crash! Rooarrr! Clatter, clatter, clatter! Grrr-rrooaarrr, clatter, clatter! Straight down the stairs, while Gizmo, at the bottom, nodded approvingly. Spider appeared down there with him in the next second. He truly lives up to his name. I think the only way he could have gotten down there that fast was to skitter down a web.

Another red hat materialized beside me, wading through the trash, working on fixing the breakage to the machine. I tried to clear him a foothold while staying out of his way.

Then Spider — up with us again! — said, “Fred, you have to sign out at 2:00. And it’s about five minutes till.” All temps were being released.

I’d gotten the bulk of the trash — maybe three-fourths of it.

“Come on down!” called Gizmo.

I used those five minutes to help Gizmo clear the stairs. He pulled with his broom from below; I pushed from above. With my feet, I shoved cans and bottles out through the open risers as he hollered encouragement. When we were done, I joined him below and said, “I didn’t get it all, but I didn’t want to get in that guy’s way.” Gizmo said, “You did great, brother! Sign out! I’ve got all this. I told ’em I was sending up the best. They wanted the best, and I sent up the best. Thank you!” I said, “Any time!” He laughed and said, “I know!”

I met Ralph at the sign-out sheet. He said, “I guess we’re out of here.” I said, “Yep.” We talked as we headed for the punch-out trailer, then all the way out to our cars. It wasn’t much of a loss in pay — just an hour early. And getting off an hour early makes for a pleasant day. Catwalks, the Event Threshold, and being sent up to John, Spider, and Dan as “the best” Gizmo has to offer: not a bad day!

What makes me happiest is that when Gizmo needs something dramatic done, he thinks of me. Soli Deo Gloria!

 

Another Friday, More Adventures

Posted on August 25, 2012 by fsdthreshold

The heat rose again this week, which made me happy. Still, I miss real “dog days” in August. Is it just the tendency of memory to idealize and amplify, or were summers longer and hotter when we were kids? In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee appeals to our sense of nostalgia right from the get-go when she’s describing the hot summers of childhood — “It was hotter then.” I knew from that first page or two that I was going to love the book. Are there other books you know of that use summer heat well? This would be a good topic to discuss — anyone? From the novella In Evil Hour, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I remember the heat of the village, the dead animal on the riverbank that no one will take away, which continues to decompose and smell, and the ranking official’s unabating toothache . . . Marquez creates that atmosphere of a stagnant, miserable situation coming to a head, the tension building as human dramas unfold. I want to get back to Marquez. I just picked up a copy of his Strange Pilgrims at Half-Price Books. Have you heard the story of how he started writing One Hundred Years of Solitude? He was leaving on a vacation with his family; the car was all loaded; they were driving down the road. Marquez got this idea that wouldn’t let go of him . . . so he turned the car around, they all went home, and he started writing. Wouldn’t it be terrible to be married to (or the child of) a genius?

Anyway, I’m continuing to absorb everything I can from these waning days of summer. This past week, the early mornings have been foggy. When I wake up in the pre-dawn darkness, I always stand for a moment at the open door of my balcony and say good morning to the neighborhood. (It’s funny how the body clock works. Lately, I’ve been waking up about a minute before my alarm would ring. Isn’t that bizarre? That’s been my pattern throughout life, regardless of when I’m getting up or what job I’m doing. We’re “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Either the body has an internal clock that is extremely accurate, or else there are angels sitting beside us that shake us awake at the appointed time.) The sun rises as I get ready and leave the house.

But anyway, the fog. I drive through the Stowe Tunnel, emerge into the sunrise, turn left, and then when I cross the bridge onto Neville Island, there’s another misty island off to my right. Straight ahead, in the jumble of the industrial jungle, there’s a factory where a dancing flame perpetually jets and dances above a stack. One morning this week, it was so foggy that I could just barely see the flame. It was a faint glow through the vapor.

As I move along Neville Island, the Ohio River is to my left. Its far bank is a steep, wooded mountainside. The trees are uninterrupted, a vast stretch of them, from the bridge as far as I go and beyond. As I drive, I glance again and again at the misty trees, beyond the mist-wraiths rising from the river. I wish I could be among them with my Neo, working on The House of the Worm. But the trees are there, and they’re an inspiration. Summer is there, at the borders of our lives — the true Summer, the ideal Summer where stories and ideas dwell. It’s always within sight in the warm months. It’s there to inform and quicken our art.

So, the week at work went quite smoothly. Every day on our punch-cards, we’ve been racking up 7.5, 7.5 . . . Well, you know how Fridays are. The adventure struck at about 1:00 p.m. We were back from lunch, just started good on that final two-hour stretch. All day, the belt had been stopping momentarily, for which I’m always grateful. It gives us a chance to empty our trash bins and scoop the overflowed stuff off the floor back onto the belt. (If I were running the machines, I’d put in such stoppages on purpose. It increases the efficiency of the line workers.) The belt stopped, and Punkin’s radio crackled, and he told us that we were down. So I grabbed a push-broom, and downstairs we went for cleanup.

We scoured out the chamber below our deck, where the detritus falls. Ralph told me he’d heard a motor was broken, which probably meant we were down for the count. By his phone, it was 1:11. Not a good thing — the shift ends at about 2:50.

Ralph went out to the main floor to clean. He likes to keep an eye on the general movement of things. I knew I could find a better time with Gizmo. I reported to Gizmo, and he asked, “You wanna do something?” I said, “I do indeed, Sir.” He said, “Bring that broom. You’re gonna love this!” Gizmo knows me. He sent me up a ladder to a remote, lofty place in the innards of the beast where I’d never been before. This was up under the roof, where the heat was withering. Gizmo described the operation from the ground, showing me the rails of the catwalk that I had to reach. “See that?” he asked. “When you get up there, you’ll see a big hole. Just push all that from under the machine into the hole.”

It was a big, stubborn pile, and I had to crouch down to do it. But I saw what he meant. There was an inner pit of cans and bottles. I was supposed to shove all the cans and bottles from the catwalk into the pit. Nice, huh? Heat, railings, a precarious catwalk, shoving around with a broom in places you can’t exactly see, and the satisfying cascade of trash into the pit. I got the bulk of the pile cleared away. The catwalks weren’t done yet to my satisfaction when I saw Gizmo conferring with Spider, and he called me down. “They want everyone to sign out,” he told me. I passed the awesome line boss Dan, who said, “All right, baby, we’re out of here at 1:30.” Yes, he called me “baby”!

So yes, we got released at 1:30. Not quite a full week, but I was not complaining. I was ready for the weekend to begin.

Backing up a bit — today, Ralph and I were imagining what it would be like if trash-sorting were a sport, and if sportscasters were covering it. Ralph has me in stitches when he does his “white guy voice.” His white guys are always talking to someone named Bill. The day a lawnmower blade nearly took my nose off, Ralph did his impression of a guy changing the lawnmower blades: “Bill, I’m going to put new blades on this thing and throw the old ones away.” Well, today, he did a hilarious rendition of an excited sportscaster covering the paper line. “Oh, my ***! Did you see that sweep?!” He had the intonation perfect! “Durbin’s a good man on the cardboard. He has one of the longest reaches in the sport. How long is his reach, Bill?” — “Well, he can extend it by another meter with his lunge. You know, he actually cracked a rib at the beginning of the season diving after an egg carton. There was a question of whether he’d be able to sort or not, but he’s snapped back, and if today is any indication . . .” “Holy cow! Did you see that?! He gets in the can with both hands full! You know, Bill, what makes him one of the greats is that he can hit that can/bottle shaft without looking at it. It’s like he has sonar in that left hand . . .”

We have a good time.

Don’t let anyone tell you that the summer is over. August itself has another week to go. Then there’s a stretch until the equinox. So enjoy the Deep Summer while it’s here! Bake, bask, read, create, dream, imagine . . .