Dry Ice Factory

Yesterday ron_drummond and I were talking about Joanna Russ, and he told me the story of how he first heard of her and of the series of important connections that followed from that. It's a great story, and I hope he writes it up. It involves Chip "Samuel R." Delany, and it got me thinking about the likelihood that Chip was also the one who, less directly, introduced me to Russ' work.

There's no way to know for sure, but I pulled out my log of all the books I've read since March 29, 1979 just to see what it would tell me. I was still 18 at the time I started the log, and I had been a big science fiction reader for several years already. Memory tells me that I'd read Delany's Babel-17 in the fall of 1978 and hadn't been impressed. (I'd bounced off Dhalgren in the eighth grade in 1974, the year it was published.) Then I went to my first science fiction convention, where I met Denys, and Denys urged me very strongly to try Delany again. And because I was so bowled over by Denys, I did try Delany again. My log book probably does reflect this. Delany's The Einstein Intersection is #9 on the list, which means I read it sometime relatively soon after March 29, 1979, which would be about right for a post-Norwescon timeframe. The record shows, to no one's surprise, that I worked my way steadily through Delany's oeuvre thereafter.

One curious thing I learned from looking at the log is that the first book I read by Thomas Disch was On Wings of Song, which I read shortly before the next date I recorded, which was July 7, 1979. (I had read fifty books in that four month period. It probably takes me two or three years to read fifty books these days.) Delany, Disch, and Russ were my trinity of great writers in those early years at college. My theory going into this historical exercise was that Chip's critical writing about Disch and Russ is what turned me on to them, but my log book doesn't necessarily support that theory when it comes to Disch. My thought, which Ron had also suggested, was that it was Delany's collection of essays, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw that introduced me to Disch and Russ, but I apparently didn't read that until December 1979. By then I had already read 334, The Genocides, The Puppies of Terra, Echo Round His Bones, and Fun with Your New Head.

However, the log does seem to support the theory that The Jewel-Hinged Jaw is what brought my attention to Joanna Russ. Four entries later comes Alyx (the Gregg Press edition), and later in January 1980 I also read And Chaos Died for the first time. I read The Female Man, We Who Are About To, and The Two of Them in March. The log confirms my memory that And Chaos Died was my favorite: I reread it in February 1981 and then again in December 1981. Turns out I misremembered something else, however: I did reread We Who Are About To, in 1982, and I reread all her other novels over that period too. I haven't gone through all thirty years of my log, but from what I did look at it appears that the only other novel of hers I read a third time is The Two of Them, and it's probably true that I've always liked that one slightly better than the more famous The Female Man too. I read And Chaos Died a fourth time in 1989, and I haven't looked any further than that. In 1989 I would've still been hoping that I could write something like my favorite Joanna Russ novel.

In my personal pantheon John Crowley joined the original trinity slightly later in time. (Eventually Disch fell out.) I discovered him on my own, as far as I can tell. The log confirms that I read The Deep first, in 1980. I have a very clear memory of reading the paperback in the dilapidated easy chair that carl and I had in our apartment in Eugene. What I didn't remember is when and in what order I read the rest of his existing work. The record shows that I read Beasts sometime between March and August 1981 and that I read Engine Summer in August. That one I remember reading in the upstairs bedroom of my parents' house in Portland, where I was staying for the summer. I read Little, Big in February 1983, and that's when Crowley joined my pantheon.

Well, I don't know why I felt compelled to share all this. I guess Joanna's death triggered the memories. Someone recently pointed me to a long blog post an artist did on how to train yourself creatively, and one of the guy's suggestions was to read everything by your favorite writer and then read all of your favorite writer's favorite writers. That's what I was doing back then. If I saw a book with a blurb from Delany, I read it. I pored over his essays about Joanna Russ, and carl and I pooled our money (a buck-25 each) to buy Sharee a copy of Fundamental Disch, which Chip edited. It was exciting times, and my brain was exploding with new input. I dreamed that someday I'd join my pantheon as one of the greatest science fiction writers of the era. Well, a boy could dream in those days. It was a good dream to chase after, even if what ended up catching me was something entirely different.

Many of you will have already seen this via supergee (to whom, thanks), but if only to keep track of this link myself, I'll post a pointer to John Crowley's brilliant essay "Worldmaker - Remembering Tom Disch" at the Boston Review. The bulk of it is a review of Disch's 334, but it has a wise and knowing take on science fiction in general and many sweet and plangent personal memories of Tom Disch as well. Terrific stuff.

After soliciting suggestions on the unfamiliar genre of the best-selling endless fantasy series, crowleycrow has come up with a determinedly non-metafictional plot to the first book in the series, involving a lesbian unicorn pirate chief(ess). Anus-clenching shirt-ripping adventure, with plenty of hot gender-bending softcore sex!

Yesterday holyoutlaw and I saw The Notorious Bettie Page at the Harvard Exit. I'm not much of a fan of biopics, but this one has an unconventional, nondramatic structure -- or perhaps the narrative is just deep in the context. One thing leads to another, but there isn't much narrative tension or conflict and it seemed that most of the key moments and developments actually happen offscreen. It's visually stylish, and I particularly liked the way that they recreated the look of filmstock from older eras, mixing in stock footage with new stuff in fairly subtle ways. I was also intrigued by how it was able to create an air of innocence and ease around even full frontal female nudity. In many ways, the movie is all about the sexualization or even fetishization of the female form, and yet the movie itself does not have a prurient or exploitational view. I guess that makes it an art film, eh?

Today I'm starting to get excited about my upcoming trip back east. On Wednesday I'm flying to Albany, New York to visit my friend Ron in Troy. On Thursday we're driving to the Berkshire Hills to have lunch with crowleycrow, and I'm sure there will be much talk of the 25th anniversay edition of Little, Big. Then on Friday I fly to Toronto for Corflu. This whole trip will cover new territory for me. I've wanted to go to Toronto for years, but the prospect of seeing a bit of upstate New York and rural Massacussetts is equally exciting at this point. I'm sure it will be a high energy trip at all stops.