MemeMachineGo!

=v= I caught the Springsteen concert in Pittsburgh, where I heard him sing “My Hometown” in my hometown. (He was of course singing about his hometown, but no matter.)

In the 1980s, George Will touted Springsteen and his “merry little” E Street Band as exhibiting the sort of optimistic can-do spirit that Will felt was most seemly for the working class. Ronald Reagan echoed his sentiments. Springsteen responded by playing his song “Johnny 99” and suggesting that they try listening to the lyrics. In the prologue to his cover of “War,” he went a bit further and warned that faith in your leaders will get you killed.

Fast forward to last Wednesday. Springsteen had a short remark about lies coming from the government. Most of the 45,000 in attendance listened politely, but as luck would have it, I was seated in front of 2 hecklers who shared 1 brain cell between them. One of them yelled, “Vote Bush!” and high-fived the other (passing the brain cell in the process, you see) who then yelled, “Dubya!”

Developing his thesis further, he yelled “U!S!A! U!S!A!” At which point I came up with the perfect retort: “This is Springsteen, not Springer!” Alas, when I gave voice to this retort I said “Springfield” instead of “Springsteen.” D’oh! But at least it did the trick: their brain cell overloaded, they sat down to ponder the matter and didn’t do any more heckling.

=v= The city of Pittsburgh has been invaded by dinosaurs, a project similar to New York's "Cow Parade," Omaha's "J. Doe," etc. Unlike those other projects, which allow local artists to decorate prefab blanks in the shapes of cows, people, Snoopies, etc., this one actually starts with dinosaurs in varied shapes.

Some friends of mine in Vancouver populate that city with dinosaurs as well, though this is more of a mobile art project, as those dinos ride bikes in protest of fossil fuels. ("Extinction stinks!" they remind us.) The Pittsburgh project might confuse some cyclists, by the way, since the gathering point for Critical Mass has long been "by the dinosaur." (One might be inclined to view these immobile dinos as an insidious plot to disperse Critical Mass, as the city has so far failed to do, but that would just be a paranoid digression that one would prefer to distance oneself from.¹)

No, one's sound and unparanoid mind turns instead to a more pressing matter: the need for public art in the form of Barney the Dinosaur meeting his untimely demise in some way — untimely only in the sense of being years too late. I've requested the appropriate prefab blank so that I could execute (heh heh) this vision, but they haven't gotten back to me.

But now an even more urgently pressing matter is afoot! I just overheard a radio ad for something called "Barney and Friends on Ice," and they're coming to Pittsburgh! Fellow jihad members, our time is ripe! You know to do.

(As my previous entry has revealed, I can find a Simpsons moment in just about anything. This, however, is a moment that evokes Matt Groening's early work in his Life in Hell comic strip, which once reminded us that "cartoon-themed ice follies are your best entertainment value." But I digress once again.²)

¹ Not all digression is bad, as readers of such works as Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine can attest to. Not that I'm comparing myself to him. Digressing online can be problematic when one has no facility for creating footnotes. Fortunately, I know how to roll my own.

² "The Simpsons on Ice" evoked some scorn from veteran Life in Hell fans, who saw it as some sort of sellout on Mr. Groening's part. I found the whole spectacle amusing. I never attended cartoon-themed ice follies of any kind, but I can tell that it holds appeal for all ages. My own mother attended "The Simpsons on Ice" and found herself seated next to an old, old man who, it turned out, sold the family home to my grandfather. Which is where I'm sitting right now, writing this blog entry. But I digress ...

=v= Zed has given a plausible reason for his recent absence, even providing juicy details about escrow. I fell for it, and perhaps you did, too. But then I stumbled onto this:

The manager, behind the thick window, had asked his name.

"Rob," the friend had said.

"Rob? We've already got a Rob. What's your name?"

"Something different?"

"Yes."

"Robert."

"No. We've got a Robert."

"Do you have a Zed?"

He checked his list. "No."

"Okay, then I'm Zed."

For the next two years Rob, a.k.a Zed, lived in an apartment with five other couriers, each paying two hundred dollars a month. None of the roommates even knew the guy on the lease. Rob had no driver's license or identification, no bills to pay in his own name. He took home cash every day under the table, having filled out no employee paperwork. He was known only as Zed.

(From The Immortal Class: Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power, by Travis Hugh Culley.)

So, if you're looking for Zed, keep your eyes peeled for a recumbent bike messenger somewhere on the streets of Manhattan.

On July 27, when I wrote blogging is apt to be very sketchy for the next three weeks I didn’t really expect it to take that long to have an Internet connection in my new house.

Well, after the usual sorts of DSL snafus I won’t bore you with, it took till today. But I’ve got it now.

Regularly scheduled posting resumes tomorrow.

Jared Diamond, of Guns, Germs & Steel fame, on the end of empires :

One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse. Few people, however, least of all our politicians, realize that a primary cause of the collapse of those societies has been the destruction of the environmental resources on which they depended. Fewer still appreciate that many of those civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society’s demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth, and power.

This FBI pamphlet to “assist uniformed patrol officers in identifying domestic terrorism” made the rounds a while ago, but is still worth calling attention to.

Most notably, one of their tips of “questionable activity” to look for is:

Make numerous references to US Constitution

Here’s an amazingly cool feature for Mozilla and Firebird — look up something on your favorite site for looking stuff up. For instance, if I look up ‘metonymy’ in the American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed., the results page has the URL http://bartleby.com/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/ahdsearch?search_type=enty&query=metonymy&db=ahd&Submit=Search

Now if I bookmark that, go to manage my bookmarks, go to that bookmark’s properties, replace ‘metonymy’ with %s, and associate the keyword ‘ah’ with the bookmark, then forevermore, I can look things up in the dictionary just by entering, e.g. ah synecdoche in the address bar (where one would normally enter a URL.)

Works with any lookup that refers you to a URL that includes the query term in it. Phone numbers, maps, movie listings… have fun!

An ex-dotcommer gives lessons on offering tech support to individuals and small businesses as a career.

Forget the boom-time Nineties. They’re gone. I’m sorry. I really am. It was a fun ride, but the roller coaster is closed and the “you must be this tall” sign has been replaced with Tornado fencing topped with razor wire. This is a hard lesson to learn, even this far into the recession and this long past the bubble. In posts on Slashdot, in discussions on Usenet, in many conversations with professional peers, particularly those in New York, London and San Francisco, I find again and again that the main barrier to re-entry in the work force for many people—not just technically-oriented folks—is a reluctance to admit that things will never be quite what they were. It’s pride, mostly: they have difficulty reducing their expectations.

The San Francisco Learning Annex is offering a course in Watching the Matrix .

Uncover the Hidden Meanings of a Remarkable Film

In this multimedia, interactive seminar, you will view clips from the Matrix and learn how to:

• Uncover the hidden meanings of symbols, metaphors and mythological themes in film
• Deal with personal obstacles in your own heroic journey
• Appreciate your own spirituality through your love of films.

You’ll gain wisdom from the inspiring stories of the Matrix and other films - and use what you learn to enhance your life.

To hype his new novel, Quicksilver, Neal Stephenson, despite relating

…the following quote from Umberto Eco: “I don’t even have an e-mail address. I have reached an age where my main purpose is not to receive messages.” In a recent review of one of my novels, I was described as “Umberto Eco without the charm” and so it should be pretty clear in what direction I am going.

has allowed himself to be interviewed .

A decade after Snow Crash, how do you feel when people still refer to you as cyberpunk?

Oh, it’s a great label. You get to wear black leather jackets and mirrored shades and be hip and cool as long as cyberpunk is hip and cool. But I think I’ve been recategorized as post-cyberpunk, so that’s over.

And I learned something I didn’t know: the Baroque Cycle trilogy is finished (or at least damn near) and the remaining two books will be coming out 6 months and a year from now, respectively.

I already have Quicksilver on hold at the library. (This is my new homeower-ese for “I’ve already ordered my copy.”)

While I’m racking up Stephenson links, check out Mother Earth, Mother Board , a long article on laying fiber optic cables (as well as telegraphy cables) he did for Wired.

Scottish museum curators speculate that H. Rider Haggard’s She Who Must Be Obeyed was inspired by a First American woman:

Campbell was nothing but grateful after his encounter with the Tahltan Indian woman, whose name is not known, on the shores of Dease Lake in northern British Columbia while on a fur trading mission in the 1880s.

“Furious savages rushed into the room where McLeod and I were sitting,” he wrote. “Some of them seized our weapons from racks on the wall and would have assuredly shot us had not the Chieftainess, who was lodged at the end of the house, rushed in, and commanded silence.

“She found out the instigator of the riot, walked up to him, and stamping her foot on the ground, repeatedly spat in his face, her eyes blazing with anger.

“Peace and quiet reigned as suddenly as the outbreak had burst forth.”

[…]Research by David Forsyth and Maureen Barrie, curators for a new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland, has established that Campbell was a close friend of Haggard. Forsyth said: “We now know Campbell often recounted his tales of daring to Haggard and it is the tale of the powerful chieftain which is believed to have caught his imagination and inspired his novel She.”

(Via Follow Me Here )

For a long time, the maximum weight measured by a standard household bathroom scale has been 300 lbs. Another indicator of Americans getting fatter: one major scale company is upping the ante:

“Until recently, the industry standard was 270 to 300 pounds,” said Jennifer Hansard, marketing director for Health-O-Meter, a heavyweight in the residential scale market. […] “In the past year, we have launched over 45 new products, and the range capacity (is) 330 to 400 pounds,” said Hansard, adding “400 seemed a reasonable number. If we find consumers need a higher capacity, we have the technology to do it.”

In Demolition Man , Sylvester Stallone’s and Sandra Bullock’s characters have this dialogue :

“Hold it! The Schwarzenegger Library?”

“Yes, the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library. Wasn’t he an actor?”

“Stop! He was President?”

“Yes. Even though he was not born in this country, his popularity at the time caused the 61st Amendment…”

Ha ha ha, very funny. Or so I thought until I read

Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger is still a long way from being elected California’s governor, but proposed constitutional amendments that would allow foreign-born citizens such as the action movie star to become president will be debated in Congress this autumn. One of the proposals, by Schwarzenegger political friend Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, would allow anyone who has been a U.S. citizen for 20 years and has resided in the country for 14 years to be elected president. Hatch denies that he proposed the amendment on July 10 with Schwarzenegger in mind, but it turns out that the 56-year-old actor-businessman was naturalized in 1983.

What a coincidence. This is probably also a coincidence:

Schwarzenegger’s candidacy is not unprecedented, especially considering the Terminator’s record as a campaigner and fund-raiser for Republican causes (I once covered him stumping in West Valley City for Orrin Hatch).

I’m not laughing any more.

I'm not at Torcon, but this report is just in from Jimcat, MemeMachineGo!'s correspondent in the field. Take it away, Jim.

These are some notes from a panel that was held at Torcon this afternoon on the subject of the rediscovered Heinlein novel, For Us, the Living.

The novel was written in late 1938 and early 1939, and was labeled as "Opus 1" in the Heinlein archives at UC Santa Cruz. However, no physical copy of the manuscript had been found for many years. The trail was picked up by Bill Patterson, who had been given permission by Virginia Heinlein to write Robert Heinlein's biography. He and Robert James, of the Heinlein Society, decided to start looking for copies of the manuscript among friends of Heinlein, to whom he might have sent a copy for review.

Mr. James found a trace of it in the estate of L. Sprague DeCamp, who unfortunately was near the end of his life when James examined his archives and was too ill to answer the inquiries personally. Examination of DeCamp's archives showed that DeCamp had gotten a copy of the manuscript from Heinlein for review in 1938 and held onto it for quite some time. In the 1990's, DeCamp gave his copy to Leon Stover, who had originally been authorized to write Heinelein's biography but later had a falling-out with Mrs. Heinlein. Stover's notes for his unfinished biography indicated that he had a copy of the manuscript.

Finally, James tracked the manuscript to Stover's assistant, who had received DeCamp's original 1939 carbon copy of Heinlein's typescript -- and then kept it in a box in his garage for ten years! James asked, "May I please make a copy of this?" and the assistant said, "Sure, go ahead!" Apparently it had never occurred to the man that anyone might actually want to read the thing.

So, acting on behalf of the Heinlein Society, James turned over the typescript to Heinlein's literary heirs -- the Heinlein Trust, which was established by Virginia Heinlein to award prizes for writing that promoted the commercialization of space. The trust sold the manuscript to Scribner's, and it will be published later this year. The panelists said that you could pre-order it on Amazon now, although I was unable to find a listing. But it should be on the bookstore shelves by Thanksgiving.

The book itself is, by some people's descriptions, not really a "novel" per se. Spider Robinson described it as a thinly fictionalized series of lectures. It shows a basic ignorance of the conventions of fiction writing, which is probably why it was never published in its original form. But parts of it were apparently recycled over Heinlein's writing career, as some of the concepts and plot elements appeared in works such as the Future History cycle and Beyond This Horizon.

Robinson would definitely not recommend it so someone who's never read Heinlein before, but all the panelists agreed that it should be a treasure for longtime fans of his work. It provides a good illustration of the evolution of his writing style and philosophy, and the Heinlein Society representatives drew parallels to the publication of Mark Twain's Letters From the Earth, which sparked off a new cycle of Twain scholarship and publication of previously unreleased material. The agent for Heinlein's works mentioned that there were a few other pieces of Heinlein material in the publication pipeline, including "all of his umpublished non-fiction".

On another side note of Heinlein trivia, I asked Robert James what he knew about Heinlein's first marriage. (James is the foremost authority on Heinlein's second wife -- commonly thought to be his first -- Leslyn MacDonald, and uncovered the first clues while researching that marriage.) He said that Heinlein's first wife was a woman from Kansas City whom he married shortly after graduating from the Naval Academy. This woman didn't want to be a "Navy wife", and refused to travel with him, so apparently there never was much of a marriage other than on paper. They divorced in the early 1930's, and the woman re-married a few years later, then moved away from Kansas City and dropped from the public record. James told me the woman's name, but I've forgotten it. At any rate, the information will be in Bill Patterson's biography, but that is only about half finished at this time, so it may be another three or four years before it sees publication.

All of the fans in the room when For Us, The Living was discussed seemed quite enthusiastic about the novel and any other Heinlein material that might be released. It looks as though Heinlein, like so many other creative types, may enjoy a long and successful posthumous career.

Thanks, Jim!

Updated 10/15/2003: Robert James submitted these corrections in the comments:

Unfortunately, this report contains a number of incorrect statements, the most erroneous of which is that L. Sprague de Camp did NOT have a copy of the novel, nor is he the source for it.

Neither Bill nor I were looking for copies among Heinlein's friends, either.

I found reference to it in some papers that de Camp had, which led me to Michael Hunter.

I never looked through Hunter's garage -- he mailed a copy to me.

Finally, the novel does NOT show a "basic ignorance of the conventions of fiction writing" -- it's a novel, although one in a mode of fiction we don't see much of any more: the social utopia.