The Annual Magazine Caravan April 19 2009

Text adapted from The Pulse

April 19, 2009. A literary cabaret featuring Rob Budde, Dee Horne, Sarah de Leeuw, Betsy Trumpener and Gillian Wigmore who read from their recent works published by BC book and magazine publishers.
Venue: Books & Company

See more pictures on facebook.

The Ambassador's Staff by Sherry D. Ramsey

"Met" Sherry D. Ramsey this morning by reading her story, The Ambassador's Staff on the e-journal Thoughtcrime Experiments. It's a future-noir. Well put together, goes down smooth, and captures my feelings about too little sleep and too much coffee, to boot. Allegorically speaking." Below is the bio on Sherry D. Ramsey from the site. Sherry is also an SF Canada member, which is how I came across her story.

Sherry D. Ramsey (sherrydramsey.com) never expected to become an Internet geek. However, after publishing a web magazine for ten years, creating websites, copyediting for the Internet Review of Science Fiction, networking with writer’s groups online, and becoming part of a writing community in Second Life, she fears it’s an inevitable conclusion. Her stories have appeared in On Spec, Oceans of the Mind, Neo-opsis, Speculative Realms, Undercurrents, and elsewhere. Sherry is a member of the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia and SF Canada, and a founding editor of Third Person Press.

Random Ethical Resonances

Twice in the last week I have happened across a statement that resonates with me as strongly as if I had written it myself - proof there is comfort and stimulus in exploring the world of other people's thinking more, which is the goal of this blog. Here are the two examples.

In Charles de Lint's 2003 "Addendum to Afterword" to his 1985 novel Mulengro, addressing the question of political correctness in writing from the point of view of races, genders and situations not our own (after respectfully noting some caveats):

Let the criteria be good writing--books that inform and enlighten us while they tell a story--not the source of the writing. And if that makes me sound naive, so be it. But I'll continue to read as widely as I can, and I'll be enriched by it. And I'll continue to use as large a character palette in my writing as the story requires, because I can't do otherwise and still maintain my integrity to my work.

Author Allan Weiss, on his website, in the section on philosophy. I expressed a kindred sentiment, I think, in my online story "Going Back Out", which is an allegory tale in which Ann berates a young Reetion pilot for giving up her sense of mission because Sevolites can fly harder than she can (a quantitative measure), without considering the cause for which they fly (a qualitative, ethical consideration). The point being that sometimes "what" you are doing has to matter more than the "how much" aspect of your success at it.

I see much moral complacency around me, and it distresses me. Writers are more interested in their careers--in making sales--than taking a potentially costly moral stand. (Weiss)

References

de Lint, C. Mulengro, (2003), New York: Tom Doherty Associates.

Weiss, A. "Philosophy and Ethics" retrieved 25 April 2009 from http://www.allanweiss.com/

Small differences call for loud distinctions

In chapter 5 of Jared Diamond's book The Third Chimpanzee (p. 99-109), the author describes the way we humans tend to pick mates who are similar to ourselves, based on a search image established during our formative years. Diamond is, as always, convincing. What, then, about the maxim "opposites attract"? After a little thought, it struck me that this is another example of a syndrome I think of as "the finer the hairs to be split, the sharper the knife". In other words, where a transgression is slight or a difference is minor, the more aggressive people are in asserting it. A good example are the psychological differences between men and women. Compared to man and tom cat, or man and nematode, the psychological and emotional differences between man and woman are pretty trivial. But it is very important to humans to delineate and defend this difference, so it is played up and exaggerated. I suspect the same could be found to be true of efforts to make black and whites seem radically different in apartheid South Africa, or patricians and plebs in classical Greek society.

References

Diamond, J. (1992). The Third Chimpanzee. (1st ed.) New York: HarperCollins.
Labels: depression, evolution, Jared Diamond, psychology

Many thanks to Cathy Palmer-Lister (http://www.conceptsff.ca and http://www.monsffa.com/) for alerting me to the Montreal Gazette story Everything you need to know for a dinner conversation about ... Reading.

The story includes the following lovely paragraph:

Isn't reading a little passé? Well, it's true that nearly one-third of Canadian adults didn't read a single book for pleasure all year, according to an Ipsos Reid survey looking back at 2007. But the 69 per cent of Canadians who did read were voracious, digging into an average of 20 books over the year.

And went on to point out the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer was made a best seller by young people. I can attest to the truth of this! My 16-year-old daughter, Angela Lott, is reading it over and over. And, I'm thrilled and proud to say, she's looking forward to reading my next novel, Part 5: Far Arena of the Okal Rel Saga, when it comes out in May.

Why marry a guy who gets down?

Reading (Diamond, 1992) p. 128 about the evolutionary biology rational for aging in humans and wondered about depression in men. Jared describes "optimization" as the explanation for why an obviously good trait, like longevity, wouldn't get as pronounced as physically possible. The answer is that whole organisms live or die, not just single traits, and the entire organism is a cooperating whole of multiple strategies each with cost-benefit aspects. Why, then, would depression exist at all? I believe dysfunctions like depression are runaway versions of functional features of an organism's makeup. Depression mitigates ego. It might, therefore, make a beta male more attractive to an alpha female by dampening his will to dominate her, making it possible for them to be cooperating mates instead of knocking the female out of the breeding game due to her unusually potent resentment of being dominated. A woman who fought back with enough determination to kill or cripple either herself or the offending male, or who was sufficiently repelled by the dominating behavior of males to run away and live in isolation from them, would eliminate herself from the gene pool. But a strong, male-resistant woman succeptible to a romantic approach by a less macho man would make a resourceful mother, especially with the support of an emotionally dependent mate. Evolutionary biology authors often talk about the role of year-round sex in keeping fathers at home to help raise their own children. Depressive tendancies might just as convincingly create an emotional dependence of the moody male on the more resilient female with a strong sense of family, assisting to keep him around. The benefits for her, and their offspring, would naturally depend on the extremity of the respective traits in play. But optimization for the organism may well have included a checkmark on the plus side for mild depression in the male, working in partnership with an emotionally robust female, especially since getting the blues does not preclude other desirable traits such as intelligence.

References

Diamond, J. (1992). The Third Chimpanzee. (1st ed.) New York: HarperCollins.

Sandra Kasturi

A line or two from Sandra's poem Broken Houses by Daylight, recently shared over her sonnetaweek mailing list to which I belong ...

What to do when the house has not quite caved in to the demands of its
roof, the quarrels of its blown windows, the fallen bricks saved
against the leaning wall ...