"An election is coming.  Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry."  George Eliot; Felix Holt

***Monday May 4, 2015  One of the other two tenants left, absentmindedly taking the other's car.

***Tuesday May 5, 2015  The bad tenant was back, not bringing the car.

I think this was when I began to feel I was in a soap opera.  Without the sex.

***Wednesday May 6, 2015 NYTimes opinion piece on Catholicism had 666 online comments when I looked at it.

***Freelancers Union event:  "Branding Yourself as an Expert."

***Thursday May 7, 2015  National Day of Prayer, proclaimed by the President.  Free story idea:  What happens if the US ever has an openly agnostic or atheist President?  The tradition would probably continue.

***UK elections.  Whenever I begin thinking the US would be better off with a parliamentary system, either the UK or Canada will helpfully prove this wrong.

***Linden Hills Adult Children Anonymous meeting.

***Sunday May 10, 2015 "The United States could relearn a thing or two from British politics -- specifically, how to relocate the pragmatism that once prevailed on this side of the pond."  Subheading of opinion piece in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis daily paper.)   The continuation is headlined "Polarization is less present in British politics."  Author?  "Lawrence R. Jacobs is director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs."

Harry Turtledove, Joe Steele.  ROC, 2015

Alternate history:   Stalin's parents emigrate to the US, and he's born here rather than in the Tsarist Empire.  He changes his name to "Steele" rather than the Russian equivalent.

He gets the 1932 Democratic Presidential nomination, after Franklin Roosevelt's unfortunate death.  Wins the election, stays President till his death.

After an interval in which it looks like the US will stop being a dictatorship, a worse man takes over:   J. Edgar Hoover.

Do I recommend it?  If you're a history buff or a political junkie, yes.  Otherwise, worth a look to see if you want to continue reading.

Googled for fantasy quidditch leagues.  They exist.

Excerpted from:  They're Moving Father's Sewer to Build a Graveyard.  For Link On Line, March 15, 2015.  Dan Goodman, dsgood@gmail.com or dsgood@iphouse.com.  612-298-2354

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Books read include:  Elizabeth Benedict, The Joy of Writing Sex:  A guide for fiction writers.  Henry Holt, 2002.  The good parts:  there's advice which seems useful; and a quote from Smilla's Sense of Snow contains an act I had never heard of before.

However, the intended readership is writers of literary fiction.  And reading this reminded me of why I don't care for most literary fiction.  Too much technique, too little life.

Ben Aaronovitch, Foxglove Summer.  Ballantine, 2014.  Part of the Rivers of London series.  (Each river has its god -- except the Thames, which has two who don't get along well.)  Peter Grant is half the staff of Scotland Yard's division devoted to fighting magical crimes.  In this book, he's sent to a small town to help investigate the disappearance of two young girls.

There are twists I didn't expect.  And I've been reading mysteries and fantasies long enough that I often spot surprises long before authors reveal them.

Aaronovitch is up on police procedures, and gets assistance from working cops.  (I don't think he consults working magicians.)  I recommend this book, and the entire series.

Note:  This is the second book with carnivorous unicorns I've read recently.  (The other is Charles Stross's Equoid.)  Anyone who looked forward to being first with the idea will need to find another one.

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A few months ago, four men were arrested for cheating at poker at Canterbury Racetrack.  (One played, one peeked at other players' cards, the other two blocked surveillance cameras.)  Their earnings were given as "above $200."

Say they grossed $60 each.  Three of them traveled to Minnesota from Florida; add in other expenses, and they can't have netted much.  Even if they'd gotten away with it, doesn't seem worth it to me.

If I recall correctly, three were in their 70s and one close to it.  They had previous records.  If they were smart, they would've gone into another line of work.

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[Names of workshop members commented to are replaced by pseudonyms]

Lord Bearer:   SF editor John Campbell once speculated that nitroglycerin had been invented before gunpowder -- several times, by alchemists who didn't live to document their results.  As I recall, Campbell took for granted that gunpowder was a European invention; but it seems possible to me that it was invented before Muslims brought gunpowder to Europe.

Latin Herder:  Actually, some genre stories begin slowly.  For example, a group of men are playing cards; and after a while one begins telling the story.  This used to be much more common, as did men sitting around in a bar.

A good recent fantasy story which starts off slowly:  Neil Gaiman, "To Weep Like Alexander."// I'm used to seeing song lyrics quoted like this:

There was an old woman in our town,
In our town did dwell.
She loved her husband dearly,
But another man twice as well.

She went to the doctor
To see what she could find,
To see what he could give her
To make her old man blind.

Or:

First time I seen Darling Corey,
She was standing in the door.
.45 pistol in her hand,
And a dead man on the floor.

Each line of the song on its own line.

//Much of my thinking is in multi-sensory diagrams; usually in three dimensions, sometimes four, occasionally five.  Which is rather difficult to get down on paper.  //An immortal woman might consider anyone with an age less than a few thousand years young.  Even if she's relatively young herself.  //I remember things much better if I write them down; and often I don't need to look at them again.  My ticker tape synesthesia is less useful, but will do in a pinch.  (Ticker tape:  Seeing spoken words printed out; in my case, also words I think out.  Thankfully, I don't notice it unless I "look."  Such things can be distracting. )

People have different kinds of memory, with more differences than can easily be imagined.

Former Medic:  I found out I had diabetes by mentioning to my doctor there was an itch between two toes which wasn't going away.  (Which is better than the first indication being a coma, as happened to someone I know and to someone I knew when he was alive.)  Thought about a relative who had diabetes and wasn't controlling it; I then lost enough weight to be merely prediabetic.

In which Planet of the Apes movie do gorillas celebrate National Human Suit Day?

Which Dr Who episode has aliens called Kardashians?

Which Peanuts character is highly interested in the Wester Bunny?

What conspiracy novel "reveals" that Popes never die, and former Popes are kept in the secret Vatican basements?

Writing Futures

Notes On Writing Future-Setting Fiction

-"Fiction always reflects the time in which it's written, not the time in which it's set.  So what's the problem?"-

The same is true of Shakespearean criticism.   But that's not what it's supposed to be about; it's supposed to be about Shakespeare in his own time and place.  And it's true of historical nonfiction, academic or popular.

And:  some people, including me, read fiction set in the future hoping to find something new.  To us, "just like today" is no more satisfying than "They realize neither of them is interested in sex and both prefer to live alone" would be to most romance readers.

Not to mention that things might change before a story is published.  For several months after the Soviet Union fell, "Soviets invade America" novels were still turning up in bookstores.   There were probably others in the pipeline or being written which no one will get to read.

It's not possible to predict the future with total accuracy.  But there are ways to cut down on bloopers.

1) If you graduated from high school thirty years ago, don't take for granted that nothing has changed.  Check.

If you graduated last year, it still might be a good idea to check.

Yes, teenagers will still act like teenagers.  But they won't wear the same clothing, listen to the same music, use the same slang.   And for how long has it been possible for a lesbian couple to be elected Homecoming King and Queen?  (See the March 2012 issue of Seventeen.)

Places you haven't been to in a while have undergone change.  In 1965, some Paris restaurants had hectographed menus in their windows; this is probably no longer the case.   (This wasn't mentioned in any guidebook I read.  If you visit any place, and don't notice anything which isn't in guidebooks, I recommend an immediate medical checkup.)

2) Look at what's already happened which will have highly-predictable consequences.

When "Jennifer" became the most popular girl-baby name in the US, it was easy to predict that in a bit less than twenty years there would be a lot of college women named Jennifer.

It should have been obvious that the Baby Boom meant larger college classes down the road.  I think most college administrators realized this around 1964, but it might have been later.

3) Certain predictions keep being made, and keep being wrong.  "In a few years, everyone will have at least one flying car."  "Once this law is passed, the problem will be solved forever."  (If you want to write alternate history in which ground cars became obsolete in 1960, and Prohibition resulted in all Americans giving up alcohol, that's another matter.)

4) Check to make sure you know what's really happening now that will affect the future.  By the late 1980s, it should have been obvious that the Soviet Union was in no shape to successfully invade the US.  

5) Take account of moral panic cycles.  Right now, nonconsenting sex is A Big Problem:  in US colleges, in science fiction fandom, in religious organizations.  Drunken driving is also seen as more of a problem than used to be the case.  Such jokes as "If you drink, don't park.  Accidents cause people" are no longer as acceptable as they once were.

Tobacco use has become much more restrictive.  And there are no longer ads like "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet."  

Conversely, marijuana has become acceptable enough to be legal in several US states; and various other countries (Portugal, for example) have decriminalized it.

And there are reciprocal cycles.  In certain times, even clueless hard drug users realize that heroin is Bad News.  Many turn to nice, safe cocaine.  Later, such people  realize that cocaine is Bad News and turn to nice, safe heroin.  (Any resemblance to political cycles is left to your imagination.)

6) Eating habits will change.  Once, most Americans had never tasted pizza.   Pasties weren't always a Finnish-American dish in the Upper Midwest.