Nancy Yos's Open Salon Blog

"Thou knowest"

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:10:02 -0400

Thornton Memorial Gardens, Homewood, Illinois; just a few blocks east of the intersection of Ridge Road and Halsted Avenue. Look closely, and you will see the fresh flowers beside the grave of a toddler who has been dead for seventy-six years.

And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.

Ezekiel 37:3

Review: The Weapon Shops of Isher by A.E. van Vogt

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:08:46 -0400

The release of Star Trek this spring, and my own reconnection with the old Star Trek TV show from the 1960s, prompted me lately to wander the stacks of the local public library, browsing for science fiction books. I almost never read them otherwise. Correction: I never read them. Growing up, my older brother owned bookshelves of the genre, but I could never build an appreciation for it. I recall trying, and abandoning the effort in disgust when the opening page of some classic story had the protagonist stepping over a Raggedy Ann doll in the street, and tumbling therewith into another dimension. "That's what's cool about it," my brother said. I only harrumphed.

It's all curious, because this year, not only has Star Trek resurfaced and great fun it is too, but a science fiction master, Robert Heinlein, has been quoted by people who are watching President Obama take on the powers of a dictator amid the orgasmic baying of a lapdog press and the silence of an apparently disbelieving (at best) public; one of the many dangers to democracy, Heinlein said years ago, arises not just from ignorance or apathy but from a simple money problem. When a bare majority of the population decides to vote itself goodies out of its neighbors' taxed wealth, forever, when once 51 percent of a country can learn to do that and call it fair and like it, the future looks bleak. And, my goodness, thanks to my brother's library, I had already heard of this wise Robert Heinlein.

It's curious, too, that The Weapon Shops of Isher by A. E. van Vogt should happen to concern grand political themes like dictatorship, an imperial cult, government theft of private property, the suppression of dissent, and gun ownership. Being science fiction, it also includes time travel, and invisibility suits, and doorknobs that reach out to, and weapons that jump into, the right people's hands.

The tale is extremely painstakingly thought out. Roughly, it gathers together three or four plots -- politics, liberty, love -- with four main characters, all interconnected. It starts in 1951, somewhere in America. A weird new shopfront suddenly appears on some Main Street, taking the place of a store already there. Its blinking neon sign reads "Fine weapons. The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A journalist investigates, enters the shop, and is never seen again.

This journalist, McAllister, is catapulted seven thousand years into the future, into an empire of Isher run by the young, lovely, adored, and more or less vicious Empress Innelda. Among her subjects she counts the fractured Clark family, whose father Fara and son Cayle don't get along. Cayle meets the dark and fetching Lucy, who is a weapon shop employee and who was McAllister's first contact when the shop materialized in the wrong time. As the plot develops, we learn that things everywhere and everytime are out of whack because the Empress is trying to launch one final attack against the shops, which represent the only thing in the empire that she does not control. (Cayle's father is all for it. Squashing evil and insurrection, and rebellious sons, and so on.) Doing this requires the harnessing and disguising of fantastic amounts of energy -- buildings shimmer in and out of existence across time and space -- and it was only McAllister's stumbling into one of the targeted shops that revealed to their fraternity of owners the scope and the kinks of the terrible plan.

Author van Vogt keeps his science going at a good clip, or at any rate he describes men walking on mid-air floors, and viewing real-time graphs charting the movement of giant buildings swinging on wild energy fulcrums through "quadrillions" of years of space time, in such a way that the reader can root for him and think, well at least he's not just saying "it's so." He also takes care to describe a completely corrupt future world. Isher is gangland Las Vegas and Chicago, and every day is potentially the St. Valentine's Day massacre. Every day is also a play day for the masses, who gamble themselves into mental oblivion in gigantic department store/casinos, or graduate to patronize seamy "Houses of Illusion" where all sensual desires are gratified through fantasy. The planets outside Earth are penal mining colonies with populations in the tens of millions.

The weapon shops at the center of the story, with their defiant slogan "the right to buy weapons is the right to be free," stand as the Empress' target, but as the story unfolds we learn that they are practically inviolable. They are run by one man, Robert Hedrock, who plays the admittedly serious game of defending them with a trump card no one else has or guesses he has. What's more interesting about them, though, is that they function as a kind of religion or even an underground government. Undergirding their existence, and their ad slogan, is a philosophy which the weapon shop men say in italics: "People always have the government they want." Given that, no other political fact matters or is even of much interest -- as long as the people can also arm themselves. "Thousands of years ago," the weapon shops' founders invented guns that could only be used in defense and only for their owners. Physical defense always being possible, the weapon shops say nothing and do nothing to interfere in any way in anyone's life. They agitate for nothing politically, they neither support nor decry any group. By their existence, they prove that while people may choose to fool away their time and energies by the millions, still the power of the state remains ultimately nil.

Maybe. This story inspired me to think anew about the Second Amendment. In 1789 the states insisted on a Bill of Rights being attached to the Constitution before they would consider ratifying it, and number two, no less, on the list of absolute rights desired was the right of the common man to own a gun. In places where it certainly seems "people do not have the government they want," in Iran, in North Korea, the people also do not have guns. And yet, earlier this week in Houston, the federal government's agents went door to door confiscating guns. And what good is a gun when the gun-owning citizen cannot keep it without (presumably, logically) committing the sin and crime of attempted murder or murder to do so -- which the gun-confiscating state will then punish with jail time?

Van Vogt solves the problem with his nearly sentient, defensive future guns. And yet, what is the point even of them when the bulk of the population doesn't want them? (Or do they?)

It's a wild story, and points up afresh, as I unburden myself of my criticisms, the quote that I happened to have come across recently, that criticism is always easier than craft. So it is, and far be it from me to criticize the man (the woman? who is A.E.?) who thought all this out. I respect the depth of the material. This science fiction is not all space ships and warp speeds, even though that's fun too. I even credit him with a remarkable case of clairvoyance. The Weapon Shops of Isher is a part of A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, edited by Anthony Boucher in 1959. Fifty years ago, Van Vogt describes his heroine searching for information, seven thousand years hence:

"First she pressed the machine-file activator, pecking out the key word illusion. The file screen remained blank. She clicked off the word house. No response."

What else is Lucy doing, but Googling? And how cool is that?

Political rally

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:08:31 -0400

It's funny how images endure, are resurrected, spread -- this yellow flag has its origins, I believe, in a political cartoon of the 18th century (the snake was shown cut up in 13 pieces, to represent the 13 colonies, and the caption was something like "unite or die"). Now it has gained another lease on life as a result of a black conservative man, at a health care town hall in St. Louis, being beaten up by nice open minded liberals as he tried to distribute it.

For the young folks who may not recognize it, this man's red t-shirt, of course, bears the Russian letters for the old U.S.S.R., plus a yellow hammer and sickle.

"The power to do as one pleases." Within limits of the law, of course, but once again I'm reminded of my old professor more than 20 years ago who said something I never forgot. You can have either freedom or equality, he said. You can't have both. If people are free, they are free to be unequal. Equality has to be enforced.

Those leaves in the background give the picture an autumnal look, don't they? It was a bright morning in August. And yet (delicious complication, as Lucia would say) the temperature barely struggled towards 70 F. One of the speakers got a laugh and a round of applause when he mentioned cap and trade, the bill designed to tax us all into protecting ourselves from Global Warming.

Podium and bunting on a summer day -- any 19th (or 18th) century American would feel at home.

This American Liberty Rally/Tea Party was organized in only four days by a local woman maddened by the orchestrations of our Congressional Representative's town hall health care meeting earlier in the week. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D -- 2nd district) hosted a tightly controlled town hall on Tuesday night, August 18th, at a church at 113th and Halsted Streets, just about the roughest Chicago neighborhood he could find for the occasion. This lady went anyway, brought and submitted six questions, and heard none of them answered. So she came home, did some web surfing and some telephoning, and by Saturday morning, August 22nd, had a park permit (I presume), four speakers lined up to talk about health insurance and sundry matters, a podium, microphone, bunting, electric generator, and a press release on the website of the local advertising circular, The Shopper, inviting all to come.

Between 65 and 70 people (I counted, twice) arrived at 11 am to chat, listen to speeches, and buy a flag or a pin from the young man walking around selling them. The keynote speaker for the morning was Kimberley Fletcher, an army wife and mother of eight who founded the group Homemakers for America and who, almost more importantly, had stories of horror and absurdity to tell of coping with government run health care via the Veterans' Administration. (If they haven't got a slot for your appointment today -- and an anonymous secretary on the phone riffles through tables and charts of illnesses and protocols to find out -- then whatever your problem is becomes an "emergency." But my son only has an ingrown toenail ... Take him to the emergency room.) She drove in from Ohio to tell her stories.

And Mrs. Fletcher is responsible, it seems, for launching something interesting called the Abigail Adams Project. She wants to create a database of all elected officials in the United States, from President to local school board officials, listing simply the official's name and philosophical stances on pertinent issues. She believes that the time ought to have arrived long since by which we vote for candidates based on their stated policies and views, not on party affiliation. Like many frustrated voters she considers both parties to be twin channels of corruption and meaninglessness. And like any voter, she is looking forward -- not literally, but we all have this image in our minds, I suppose -- to an ideal world in which representatives elected to office on the strength of their freely revealed thoughts and beliefs then get together in hallowed halls to hash out difficult problems honestly for the good of the nation. Maybe that would be good. But there was a time when voting for a personality was considered childish in itself; ten thousand personalities are a much slipperier proposition, much harder to hold to account, that one or two parties which have a stake in maintaining a sort of brand name regarding the philosophies and plans you'd like to vote for.

Still, I give this woman great credit for embarking on her apparently new life of activism, and I give our civilization great credit for producing her. What I also find remarkable and encouraging is the level of awareness at which ordinary people, or at least those interested enough to come to a political rally, are now operating. Both speakers and audience knew what TARP, the stimulus bill, cap and trade, and "spending our future" meant. Speakers who linked the War on Poverty to liberalism to socialized medicine to waste and incompetence also got a burst of assenting applause. That's new. Mrs. Fletcher went further back in time, giving a rather long speech in which she referenced both Lenin and Hitler, and this was interesting too. Seventy years on, we are having to identify Hitler in a new way, not as the genocidal monster of the last years of the war, whom our fathers and grandfathers cornered in a bunker in 1945, but as the socialist politician and cult idol he was long before that. His image belongs beside Lenin, Stalin, Che, and Mao, for ideological reasons, not just because all were vicious; my guess is that it's Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism which has gone far toward correcting the misconception that Nazis were "from the right." Gone far, then, toward reviving conservatism and giving people a truth to fight with, particularly against those who are so fond of announcing (when it serves them) that there is no truth but only differing perspectives. And anyway, -- no. The Duke of Wellington was from the right. Samuel Johnson, with his firm belief in "subordination," was from the right. These were men who believed that we none of us are capable of civilized human living outside a proper and God-ordained monarchy. Even the most conservative people today don't operate on that side of the real old-fashioned political divide.

Later in the weekend I went to a party and heard differing reactions to political and economic matters. Some people still talk blithely about insurance and future medical needs, as if the world may not turn upside down with a Congressional vote in September. One lady exulted in the fact that European countries give their citizens a stipend to cope with the expenses of a gluten-free diet. "Oh, but of course their health care sucks. Right," she fumed. It was a party, so I didn't like to ask where she thinks the money for the stipend comes from. And the men in the house talked about the construction industry simply waiting, waiting, to get moving. Projects lined up, permits signed, backhoes ready, everything "dialed in." But no lending from the banks. An economy waiting, waiting ... for what?

To see what damage our leaders can do to us first, it seems, in the quest for abstract fairness and orchestrated, collective justice. Only when they're done will we know how to cope. The Duke of Wellington would probably have said "go" by now.

Departing storm

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:08:39 -0400

The wind sweeps the rain across the street

The eastern horizon

A sense of perspective -- that's an apartment building in the lower left

Cloud or spaceship?

Shapes

Good fishing after the storm

All clear to the west

Good night

Sex and the Helium marketplace

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:08:07 -0400

See? This is what I'm talking about.

I write on Helium, when I can, which isn't as often as might be, because I am busy writing to earn the money that Helium doesn't provide unless you write night and day for Helium, earning those Writing Stars.

I used to be a Marketplace Premier Writer on Helium, and so able to write and submit articles for actual money for actual publishing firms which have begun to use Helium to find writers and content. No more. I logged on today to surf the Marketplace, found an interesting title from a new network called Theory Media Corp, wrote to it, and was all set to paste it in and submit. When I got this message: "We're sorry. You have to be a member of the group associated with this title to write to this title."

In other words, you have to be a Marketplace Premier Writer, which I no longer am because they've changed the rules and you have to have gobs of Writing Stars to be designated so. Which means writing day and night for Helium, for no money, to get the gobs of stars.

Frustration aboundeth. I thought I could sneak into Theory Media Corp through the back door, by simply finding them and submitting as myself anyway, but either this group is so new it can't be googled, or else it is a wholly owned subsidiary of you guessed it.

This is why I have this blog. You want my theory on why Sex and the City is popular, even though it's all about skinny fifty-year old adolescents of limited acting skills sleeping around Manhattan? Here you go, and my blessings.

By the way, the instructions said I should include one YouTube link and five other external links, but now I feel like I don't have to.

Word limit: "about 300"

Sex and the City shows America to be ...

There is a huge audience of middle-aged, middle-class (white) women out there, who want the fantasy of making it in New York. They also want the fantasy of having a close set of girlfriends with whom they share deep confidences. They want the fantasy of sleeping around.

They want the fantasy of a fabulous job and fabulous wealth and access to great restaurants and exciting “clubs” where you wear slinky clothes, sip cocktails, and watch a floor show of transvestite firemen dancing in feather boas. They want the fantasy of being able to walk around safely and even hop a ferry in a chic metropolitan area – the chicest of all – in a spangly dress and high heels at midnight, and not run into any trouble. They want ... but need I go on?

The women watching Sex and the City are, let’s see – well, let’s just pick one, out of all the “squillions” (I learned a new word from Vogue this month) of American households whose windows are flickering blue from the TV screen late at night, at whatever magic times La Sex is being shown in reruns. Our gal is about forty. She is married to a husband whose private life with her she would never divulge to anyone. She has two kids, and no nanny. Every day is a day of running errands, soccer practice, making dinner, cleaning. She looks like Kate Gosselin , before somebody gave Kate a makeover because she looked too much like a mom.

When our gal can sit down for her Me Time, she relishes the fantasy, the clothes, the expensive hair, the city, the men, the fun. And she gets the flip side of fantasy, too, which is always feeling superior to it after all. In the end, what did almost all four La Sex friends want, but marriage and kids? Our gal Kate, in her millions, was always way ahead of them.