Month: September 2005

Tomorrow is Primary Election Day here in Western New York. The big one is the Democratic endorsement for Mayor of Buffalo, with “establishment” candidate Byron Brown (a career pol) versus a local activist named Kevin Gaughan. Buffalo’s current Mayor, Anthony Masiello, is stepping down at the end of this, his third term.

I won’t be voting in tomorrow’s primary, for a very good reason: I don’t actually live in Buffalo. I live in one of Buffalo’s southern, outlying suburbs — in fact, to drive to Buffalo proper, I first have to traverse two or even three closer suburbs, depending on which way I go. But I do have a horse in this fight, for the most basic reason: the economic vitality of this entire region depends on Buffalo. So I may not have a vote, but as a citizen of the Buffalo-Niagara region, I most definitely have an interest at stake.

So my “vote”, virtual though it may be, goes to Kevin Gaughan.

Nothing against Byron Brown, really. I’m sure he’s a conscientious public servant who loves his mother. But Buffalo has just had twelve years under a Mayor whose main qualification was not his set of interesting ideas but his status as a conscientious public servant who loves his mother, and electing Byron Brown would just be electing “Masiello Lite”, or “Masiello Amber”, or “Masiello Special Draft”, or something similar. It would mean a different nameplate on the mayor’s desk, and that’s about it.

Everybody knows that one of Buffalo’s biggest problems is the hardening of its political machinery to the point that it resembles a ship that’s been in port for far too long and has become so encrusted with barnacles that its prow won’t cleave the water the right way anymore. But as a wise person once said, “A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.” Byron Brown will keep Buffalo in port at a time when the city really needs to set sail.

Kevin Gaughan for Mayor. Please oh please. It’s not just Buffalo that needs this. Orchard Park needs it too. As does West Seneca. And Hamburg. And Lackawanna. And Blasdell. And Cheektowaga. And Amherst. And Williamsville. And…you get the idea.

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A few days ago, Terry Teachout ruminated a bit on the idea of “living in a piece of music”, inspired to do so by this post by Heather at In the Wings. Setting aside the question that immediately arises — “How the heck do you live in a piece of music?” — I’ve been thinking a bit about it.

I find that it’s a blend of two factors, really: visual and emotive. It’s partly about what I “see” when I listen to a given bit of music, and partly about what a given bit of music makes me feel. Now, over the years, I’ve come to almost consciously avoid approaching music from a visual standpoint. Since my first real exposure to extended orchestral music came via filmscores, I tended to indulge the visual aspect, to the point of using things like the Star Wars soundtrack LPs as a means of re-experiencing the film. But then, I had a teacher who rather dramatically illustrated to me that music need not cue any one visual at all, and I was off to the races. Now, I buy filmscores only if I like the music, and I now refuse to limit myself to buying scores to films I’ve seen.

What does this have to do with “living in music”? Well, it’s a matter of approach, really. My own journeys through any musical landscape (or soundscape, I suppose) are based on feeling and emotion than on any sense of visual stimulation; likewise, I tend to prize emotion and feel over form. But anyway, staying with what I take to be the sense of the question, here are a few pieces of music that maybe I wouldn’t specifically want to inhabit, but maybe visit once in a while:

Bach, Mass in B-minor. The part of me that automatically looks up upon entering any house of worship would be at home here, I think.

Mozart, Symphony No. 40 in G-minor. I know what I just said about form, but Mozart’s just so good at form — and if form is done supremely well, as it always is with Wolfgang A., the appreciation of form can itself be an emotion, in the sense of that cosmic sense of wonder I get when standing in a field at night looking up at the stars.

Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique. Here’s good emotion winning out over bad form — the first movement in particular is pretty disjointed, as Berlioz’s grasp of sonata allegro form isn’t terribly good. He’s constantly stopping and starting rather than making convincing transitions, and at one point he goes up and down the chromatic scale before reaching one of his dead-stops. But the raw feeling of this thing — yeah, I want to live in this piece for a while. It’s a work of intense emotion, dominated by Berlioz’s fiery love (or, more accurately, obsessive infatuation) with an actress he saw on stage, and at one point driven by the fantasies of an opiate madman. Who wouldn’t want to go into that piece for a while?

Rachmaninov, Symphony No. 2 in E-minor. Longtime readers will know that I’m often mentioning this piece. It’s the most perfect expression of Romantic melancholy that I know.

Pink Floyd, The Wall. I’d probably open a vein if I actually lived inside this album. But maybe not.

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Dear Rest of the NFL,

Don’t worry about our quarterback situation. We’re fine.

Love,
The Buffalo Bills

OK, it wasn’t perfect. The Bills had five instances of entering the Red Zone in which they only came away with field goals, for instance. The running game was decent in the second half, but took most of the first half to get going. And so on. But it was quite a heartening start to the season.

The good thing was basically the poise with which J.P. Losman played in his first NFL start. He never really looked rattled or confused, and the coaches let him throw on the very first play from scrimmage and he was able to settle into a rhythm pretty quickly. Losman only made one or two outright errors in throwing, and neither cost the Bills (although, had a Houston defender managed to hold onto the ball, one would have cost them dearly as the guy had nothing but daylight between him and the end zone).

I’m not ready to revise my rather pessimistic preseason prediction yet (I had the Bills finishing 6-10). Playing well in a home opener in September is one thing; playing while trailing in a road game in November is something else, and that’s when we’ll really start to see the maturing of J.P. Losman. As one of Buffalo’s radio guys pointed out this afternoon, there are some much sterner tests in store for Losman and the Bills.

But.

If the defense’s performance yesterday is indicative of the kind of thing they can do all year (they were stingy in the first half and basically slammed the door in the second), and if yesterday’s better-than-expected-by-me performance by the offensive line bodes for what this line can accomplish later in the year when it “gels” (they only gave up a single sack, and as the game went on became better at the run-blocking), 6-10 might turn out to be needlessly pessimistic. I’m not revising yet. But stay tuned.

Brief notes from elsewhere:

:: Heavens, Drew Bledsoe sure looked good for Dallas. That was the late game on TV here, and although Bledsoe did look good, I had to laugh when, in the first play of that game that I saw, Bledsoe managed to take a sack despite the fact that his offensive line was holding on the play.

:: How did so many playoff teams from last year forget how to play defense? Especially the Vikings, who have all these good defensive players (more than a few of whom are former Bills)? Is Mike Tice a lackluster coach or something?

:: Call me cynical, but I’m not sure just how “inspired” the people of New Orleans are going to be by their football team’s surprise victory yesterday. But maybe I’m full of bird poop on this point.

:: Surely somebody can beat the StuPats? Anyone? Bueller?

Next week the Bills are on the road against Tampa. This should be a much tougher game for Losman and company, so stay tuned.

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I’m not reproducing any of them here, but go check out this slideshow of Hurricane Katrina’s arrival in New Orleans — before, during, and the awful aftermath. It’s riveting and haunting — especially when you get to the one particular object that somehow avoids being crushed by six tumbling trees. That one will make you think a bit.

UPDATE: Well, so much for that — it seems that the album isn’t available anymore at the original link I had, and thus far I can’t find a new one, so it may be gone. Too bad, as it was fascinating. If anyone finds it again (you’ll know it when you see it, there are almost 200 pictures in it) leave a link here and I’ll update again.

Failing that, the uncrushed object is a statue of Jesus in the yard of a church. Six big oak trees fell all around Jesus, and He kept right on standing. Yes, a sheer coincidence of luck, but a spooky one at that.

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(I’ve reposted this story before, but here it is again. I wrote this in response to the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01, about three or four weeks after the actual attacks had taken place. After it was rejected by the single fiction market to which I submitted it, I posted it here.)

“The City of Dead Works”

There is never any rest for me, the Ferryman of the Dead.

I pole my barge across the black waters and up to the pier. So many wait this time, many more than usual. I wonder what has happened, what event has sent me this many. “Come aboard,” I say. “I will take your coin for passage.” One by one they file past me, each handing to me the coin that they never knew they had. It is the coin which determines where they shall be taken to rest, its metal shaped and determined by life. The coins of these dead are gold, every one of them purest gold. Six thousand come aboard my barge, and each has passage for the farthest and greatest of destinations. In that moment I know that something truly dark has happened; the gold coins are always forged in moments of darkness. I am the Ferryman. I can give them no answers to what lies behind their haunted, questioning eyes. I can only take them on this, the last of all journeys.

When they are all aboard I take up the pole and push away from the pier. The barge always feels the same, no matter how many stand upon its decks. Whether six or six thousand, it is all the same to me. I guide us out onto the River Styx. Some of the people look worried, but there is no need for fear. This river can do them no harm. They are already dead.

This is to be a long journey, I know – it always is, to this destination. As I guide the barge through the black waters, I look on the faces of those who have come to me. As different as these people all look, they all have the same expressions of shock, disbelief, and withering sadness. Here is a man of business, talking into a cell phone. He is trying to call someone, anyone, who will tell him that it’s all a dream, that it didn’t happen, that he didn’t die in a blast of fire, smoke, glass and steel. There is a mother who is explaining to her daughter that they won’t be going to Disneyland after all. And there, a group of firemen stand together, realizing that soon they will meet all their brothers-in-arms who have gone into the infernos before them. So many now – colleagues once in business and now colleagues in death, people who have never before met but now have the gravest thing in common. As the current takes hold, I look back at the pier. There are more gathering there. There are always more. They will wait. Time does not exist for the dead.

“Please,” a young man says as he turns to me, “I have to go home to my daughters.”

“You are going home now,” I reply. “To the home where all eventually return.” Two black rocks slide past on either side, the rocks that mark the passage of the circling Styx.

“This can’t be,” a woman cries out. “My mother needs me.”

“She will be with you soon enough.”

“When?” Her voice pleads, and yet there is no solace that is mine to give.

“I cannot say,” I reply. “The Ferryman has no hand in Fate.”

The tears come then, tears from the six thousand that run over the gunwales and into the river which has been fed by tears for centuries. All tears are born in the River Styx.

“Where will you take us?” someone asks.

“To the place you are promised,” I answer. I recall the words of a poet: Will there be beds for all who seek? Yea, beds for all who come.

One our left we approach the Hills of the Damned, an endless stretch of shattered lands which reach away into the blackness. The waters echo with the cries of all those who have been taken to the Hills for the agony they have brought on the living. I consider the bag of six thousand gold coins, and I realize that I will have to journey to the Hills this day. There will be a person, perhaps more, who will pay me with a coin of black tin; but not on this journey. As the hills recede behind us, the unending cries of the damned become fainter and fainter until they are drowned out by the lapping of the waters upon the sides of the boat and the marker stones that we pass. The six thousand fall silent, each realizing that it is not a dream. I would offer solace, but as ever I cannot. I am the Ferryman.

We come around a particularly dark bend, and before us lies a very wide expanse of water, as if the Styx has become an ocean – which in some sense it probably has. And beyond that expanse are the thousands of twinkling lights that I have come to know so well. One man, a fireman, sees them too. “What is that?” he asks.

“It is the City of Dead Works,” I reply. The lights of the city glow on the horizon, and every one of the six thousand turns toward them as the Styx impels us onward. As we come ever closer to the city, the glittering lights reflect off the black water.

“I don’t understand,” someone else says. “The City of Dead Works?”

“Aye,” I reply. “Behold!”

From behind us, golden light: the Sun of the Dead is rising as it always does when the dead come near the City. Above us the firmament is turning purple, then blue; soon the light of the Sun will illuminate the City of Dead Works. As the sky lightens, the true scope of that city becomes plain: it stretches away into the land, farther than any eye could see. Not even the highest-soaring raven, cavorting in the breezes and zephyrs of the dead, could take it all in. It is bigger by far than any one city ever built by the hand of men, because it encompasses some part of all of them. Perhaps it is bigger than all of the cities ever built. Now the sun’s first rays come up behind us, and the first buildings can be seen down by the water.

“That one looks Egyptian,” a woman says.

“The Great Library of Alexandria,” I tell her. “Once the greatest repository of learning the world had ever seen, now only a memory to the living and a reality only to the dead.”

A man points to a building high upon a rock. I nod.

“The Temple of Solomon,” I say.

“There are ships in the harbor,” says another. Thus for him I name the ships: Arizona, Indianapolis, Lusitania, Bismarck, Wilhelm Gustloff, Cap Arcona. And many, many others. I scan over the impossibly vast city and spot Dresden, as it was; and beside it the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And how many smaller villages, tucked into the hills beyond the City? None can say. The Sun of the Dead shines upon those hills now, and the great stone statues in the likeness of Siddhartha Gautama.

“I don’t understand,” a young man says. “Why this City? Why here?”

I only shake my head as we continue to float by the City. I do not point out the fairly small, nondescript office building that sits near the water. It is not a particularly remarkable building; nor was it, really, until the fuse was lit. The six thousand almost don’t recognize it.

Almost.

Not one word is uttered as we slide past the Alfred Murrah Federal Building. Then we turn away from the City of Dead Works, and head again down the waters of the Styx toward distant hills and the place where these people will join their brethren.

“Who lives in that city?” It is a priest in a fireman’s coat.

“No one lives there,” I tell him. “The City of Dead Works is not for people. It is for the buildings and the ships. It is for the books and the music, the sculptures and the paintings which are gone forever. It is for everything destroyed by craven people in the name of foolish wars, for everything judged forfeit in the face of transitory desires.”

The Styx takes us into the Golden Hills. Soon we will be there, and the six thousand will go where they belong. And then the Styx will complete its circle, taking me back to the pier where more dead await.

“We will be there soon,” I say. “Soon we will be at the Elysian Fields, where all heroes go – for that is what you all are. It is what you have bought with your lives, with the shaping of your coins into gold.” No one replies. We near the last bend now, and before us lie the Elysian Fields, where peace reigns and where heroes dwell; where all is light and voices are always raised in song. The Sun of the Dead shines warmly on Elysium.

But they do not see it. They, the six thousand, all gaze back behind us upon the City of Dead Works. It will soon be behind us forever as we round the last bend of the River Styx into Elysium. I know they all need one last look upon that City, and I do not grudge them that. For myself, I do not look back; the eyes of the Ferryman are ever forward. But I know. I know that the City of Dead Works is different now. I know that it has changed. I know that the people who come with me now to Elysium, the dead around me, look back on the two soaring towers of steel that now rise above the City where there had been no towers before.

I know these things.

I am the Ferryman of the Dead.

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Oh, my. I’m telling you, if this is what the Imperial stormtroopers had turned out to look like, the Rebels would have surrendered at once.

(Possibly unsafe for work. Via Dave of Britain.)

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Blogger J. Marcus Xavier e-mailed me a link to this post of his a while back. Following the link, I found the post interesting, bookmarked it for future reference, and…promptly forgot about it. Whoops.

Anyway, Xavier’s thesis — focusing on F&SF fandom — is that the producers of F&SF franchises ignore their fandom at their own peril. I’m not sure I completely agree, but it is a generally good point, particularly as illustrated by the way the once-proud Star Trek franchise has run into the ground. Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, for instance, are pretty well reviled nowadays by Star Trek fans, but it’s not as though they produced nothing but crap in their Trek tenure. However, most would agree that Berman-and-Braga eventually put too much stock in their own ideas and abilities, leading them to basically (a) run dry on ideas, and (b) assume the quality of the ideas that they still had.

Some would argue that George Lucas ran afoul of the same kind of thing in the Star Wars prequels, but I would disagree, on the basis that the long period in which Star Wars lay fallow (excepting all those “Expanded Universe” books and comics) also saw the latent Star Wars fandom change in its own tastes. I think there’s also a danger for fandom itself to fossilize and become unwilling to allow the creators/producers to break free of formula and try something new (for the definitive illustration of this, of course, see Annie Wilkes and Misery).

But Xavier’s point is well taken: Sci Fi Producers: We Are Your Word of Mouth. Keeping the fans happy may be difficult, but completely disregarding them? That way madness lies.

(By the way, upon further noodling around Xavier’s blog, I see that he’s launched a blog-like site called PlanetFandom.com. This is cool, especially since SFSignal seems to be off the air now.)

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I don’t think I’ve ever actually laid forth a policy regarding the comments threads on this blog, but since someone left a bit of spam-like substance in one of my comments threads this morning, it’s probably a good time to establish a few pointers.

1. Comments threads are intended to allow readers to offer comment on whatever I write in the post to which the thread is attached. If you have something to say that’s not relevant to the particular post in question — for instance, you have something you think I might be interested in reading or you just want to give a “Hey how you doin'” shout-out — then use either of my main e-mail addresses, which are listed prominently near the top of the sidebar.

2. Any comments violating Rule #1 will be deleted, and further violations along the same line will result in the ritual banning of IP addresses.

3. My comments threads have never, to my recollection, become cantankerous or angry, so I’m not too worried about this happening in the future. But should it become a concern, let it be noted that I’m not running a message board for flame-fests. I have readers who are quite conservative, and I have readers who are literally Marxists. I’d like to keep that mix of readership, so I do NOT allow personal attacks between readers in the comments. (As I noted, this has never been a problem here before.) I don’t have the ability to lock out comments threads on specific posts, so a degree of self-policing by readers is appreciated.

(3a. Exceptions to this rule are that you can make fun of people who don’t like the Star Wars prequels or fans of the New England Stupid Patriots. Oh, and the Dutch.)

(3b. I’m kidding about the Dutch. They’re a fine people, wooden shoes and all.)

4. Personal attacks upon me are fine, so long as a name and legitimate e-mail are also left. If you’re going to attack the blogger, have the fortitude to sign it.

5. To the best of my knowledge, the YACCS comments system is not subject to search engine spiders, which means that there is nothing to be gained in comments-spammers using it. Still, I will delete any mentions of great poker sites, cia11is, v!agra, or any other such thing.

6. More of a pointer: eventually, the word “comment” is replaced on older posts to “archived”. This is a YACCS thing; I don’t know how it works. I think that you can still comment on those posts by clicking that “archived” link, but I may not see it since I don’t log into my YACCS control panel every day. Also, all comments threads disappear eventually, automatically cleared by YACCS.

That’s about it.

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Lynn officially tagged me with this. There’s a noted quote by Robert A. Heinlein, that goes like this:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

I’m supposed to tell which of those I’ve actually done. OK then:

Change a diaper: Well, duh.

Plan an invasion: Well, I’ve written about fictional characters planning invasions, so I’m counting this.

Butcher a hog, conn a ship: Nope.

Design a building: Well, I’ve “designed” dungeons and whatnot for AD&D campaigns in my youth. That counts.

Write a sonnet: Yup. It was a lousy sonnet, though. No, I don’t have a copy, and no, I wouldn’t post it here if I did. There’s a reason why I won’t post my Star Wars fanfic here, either.

Balance accounts: Yup. It’s easy to do when you’re working with single digits, though.

Build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying: Nope. I could figure out how to do all three, though.

Take orders: In more ways than one, actually. I’ve worked in restaurants, so I’ve taken orders in that context.

Give orders: I’m not sure if RAH meant this in the military context, but I’ve been in management before and have done this.

Cooperate, act alone: I do both of these on a daily basis.

Solve equations: Well, I took algebra and trig and calculus.

Analyze a new problem: What kind of “problem”? A math problem, or just a generic problem that crops up in the course of my day?

Pitch manure: Well, not specifically, but I’m counting it by virtue of my cleaning toilets at The Store.

Program a computer: Yes, writing programs like this counts:

10. PRINT “TOM BRADY IS A PANSY”
20. GOTO 10

Cook a tasty meal: You’d better believe I can do this!

Fight efficiently: Not sure what’s meant here, actually. I don’t really fight.

Die gallantly: Assuming that the characters I write about are some small piece of me, and further assuming that some of them have died gallantly, I am claiming this one.

Well, that was fun, I think. If anything, it further cements my view that RAH was kind of a weird fellow.

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