Saturday, January 29, 2011
Upcoming Science Fiction Conventions in Madison
Fans of science fiction in the Madison area have two upcoming festivals to watch. Odyssey Con 11 will be held from April 8th to the 10th, and it has announced guests of honor J. V. Jones, Sarah Monette, and Robin D. Laws. The festival has a general sci-fi/fantasy scope. Meanwhile, WisCon 35 will be held from May 26th to the 30th. This long-running Madison festival focuses on feminism and science fiction; this year, the guest of honor will be Nisi Shawl. Both festivals are currently finalizing their schedules, so be sure to check their sites for updates.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
My Space-Music Death Fantasy
Not that I spend a lot of time thinking about my death, but since adolescence I have been pretty sure of one thing: in the best possible world, the lat thing I see before I die would be the end credits to the 1960s science-fiction television series The Outer Limits.
The Outer Limits has many charms that keep attracting new fans. Several episodes are well-written and acted, Conrad Hall's cinematography was always outstanding, and episode titles were among the best ever. I defy you to not want to see a science fiction story called "Keeper of the Purple Twilight" or--my favorite--"Production and Decay of Strange Particles." However, one aspect of The Outer Limits stands out most for me: its musical score. The music of The Outer Limits was created by Dominic Frontiere and Harry Lubin; Frontiere wrote the justly famous opening theme and much of the music for season one, and Lubin wrote much of the season two music. This includes a closing song that combines theremin-y "weird" music and romantic melodrama, which is the perfect compliment to the end credits slideshow of Milky Way photos. (I only recently learned that this song is a variation on another song he wrote: "Fear," for the television series One Step Beyond.) Every time I see it, I can picture being a wide-eyed boy in the 1960s and watching the show with all the breathless excitement of knowing that the stories might be fantasy, but the space race could make them realities very soon.
I am skeptical about the idea of life after death, but if any superior being does exist and wants my opinion on what would make a good afterlife, I cast my vote for the ability to travel endlessly through the cosmos, disembodied and free to go anywhere and explore anything. But I would consider it a perfectly acceptable second place if the last thing I ever experienced was the end credits to The Outer Limits: a perfect audio-visual representation of what that trip might feel like to me.
The Outer Limits has many charms that keep attracting new fans. Several episodes are well-written and acted, Conrad Hall's cinematography was always outstanding, and episode titles were among the best ever. I defy you to not want to see a science fiction story called "Keeper of the Purple Twilight" or--my favorite--"Production and Decay of Strange Particles." However, one aspect of The Outer Limits stands out most for me: its musical score. The music of The Outer Limits was created by Dominic Frontiere and Harry Lubin; Frontiere wrote the justly famous opening theme and much of the music for season one, and Lubin wrote much of the season two music. This includes a closing song that combines theremin-y "weird" music and romantic melodrama, which is the perfect compliment to the end credits slideshow of Milky Way photos. (I only recently learned that this song is a variation on another song he wrote: "Fear," for the television series One Step Beyond.) Every time I see it, I can picture being a wide-eyed boy in the 1960s and watching the show with all the breathless excitement of knowing that the stories might be fantasy, but the space race could make them realities very soon.
I am skeptical about the idea of life after death, but if any superior being does exist and wants my opinion on what would make a good afterlife, I cast my vote for the ability to travel endlessly through the cosmos, disembodied and free to go anywhere and explore anything. But I would consider it a perfectly acceptable second place if the last thing I ever experienced was the end credits to The Outer Limits: a perfect audio-visual representation of what that trip might feel like to me.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Happy Birthday, C. L. Moore!
Today is the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Catherine Lucille (C. L.) Moore, one of the great pulp authors. At a time when the science fiction and fantasy genres were imagined to be the exclusive domain of male authors, Moore was writing adventure and fantasy stories--including her "Jirel of Joiry" series--that carried all the weirdness, action, and blood-and-thunder melodrama the boys were writing about. The cover to the October 1934 issue of Weird Tales featured a now-famous illustration for Moore's story "The Black God's Kiss" drawn by Margaret Brundage, the premiere illustrator of the pulp era. Moore and Brundage were both trailblazers, as fantasy author and artist alike.
For those who have not read anything by Moore, the "Jirel of Joiry" series is a great starting point. It is a fantasy series set in a version of medieval France, in which the heroine faces a rogue's gallery of villains who attempt to claim her throne. Much like Robert Howard's "Conan" series--which was thought to be an influence on her work--the "Jirel of Joiry" series is made up of independent stories set in the same world, but taken together, they paint as rich a picture of their heroine and her world as if she had written them as one novel. Jirel of Joiry is one of the first "sword and sorcery" heroines, and she is also a character with a great dramatic arc. From one story to the next, Jirel has to often choose the lesser of two evils, affecting her and her world, sometimes in surprising ways. As Jirel moves from one story to the next, her past demons (literal and figurative) carry over, adding depth to her mythology.
Books of Moore's work are largely out-of-print at present, but hopefully new releases will be coming soon. Red Jacket Press does have a nice edition of Judgment Night, which collects five of her novellas. And you should look for the 1982 Ace Fantasy edition of Jirel of Joiry at used bookstores and your local library!
For those who have not read anything by Moore, the "Jirel of Joiry" series is a great starting point. It is a fantasy series set in a version of medieval France, in which the heroine faces a rogue's gallery of villains who attempt to claim her throne. Much like Robert Howard's "Conan" series--which was thought to be an influence on her work--the "Jirel of Joiry" series is made up of independent stories set in the same world, but taken together, they paint as rich a picture of their heroine and her world as if she had written them as one novel. Jirel of Joiry is one of the first "sword and sorcery" heroines, and she is also a character with a great dramatic arc. From one story to the next, Jirel has to often choose the lesser of two evils, affecting her and her world, sometimes in surprising ways. As Jirel moves from one story to the next, her past demons (literal and figurative) carry over, adding depth to her mythology.
Books of Moore's work are largely out-of-print at present, but hopefully new releases will be coming soon. Red Jacket Press does have a nice edition of Judgment Night, which collects five of her novellas. And you should look for the 1982 Ace Fantasy edition of Jirel of Joiry at used bookstores and your local library!
Resolutions and Writing
I came up with a few New Year's resolutions, all based around writing as a goal. The advice I have heard many times is that resolutions should be small, achievable goals. Resolutions to "lose weight," "work out more," or "write more" all tend to fail because they are too vague to accomplish. So in trying to come up with goals for 2011, I wanted to avoid anything along the lines of "write more" because I would never really feel that I had accomplished it.
I also had to address some of my anxiety about publishing my writing. I tend to worry about letting other people see what I write, which keeps me from A) getting advice that might help me grow as a writer and B) getting anything I have written published. But the more I thought about it, I actually write a lot of material that is published, at least in the sense of being made publicly available. I write letters--actual ink-on-paper letters, not e-mail--to friends and family, I write finding aids and MARC records at work, and in the past I had a job as a technical writer, where not only did I write every day, I was actually being paid to write. When I give myself that much credit, I can acknowledge that I already write on a daily basis, almost always for the consumption of at least one other person, and now and in the past as a significant part of my jobs. Sure, no one is buying a paperback copy of finding aids I have written for films at the Wisconsin Historical Society, but I still have an audience in mind, and I know records I have written are read and used by other people.
With that in mind, my resolutions:
1. This year, I will write at least two works, outside of my job as an archivist, for publication. I have to try to find a publisher for them, by submitting them to magazines or sites for web fiction. I do not have to be paid a specific amount, nor do I have to win any awards (both of these are issues more or less out of my control at this point), I just have to get something that I have written out there for other people to read and criticize, and twice.
2. I will try to write for my own projects at least 3 times a week, for at least one hour at a time. This is a "baby step" in the process of making writing a part of my normal routine, but it is realistic. So far this year I have had two successful weeks and one unsuccessful week. But I have a few nights each week to myself, and these are perfect times to turn off the TV and the radio, disconnect from Facebook, and just sit and write.
3. To help make writing an integral part of my life, I will keep up written correspondence and I will start keeping a blog. I have been writing letters to people since last fall, and I find this an immensely satisfying activity. As opposed to writing short stories or essays--which can be frustrating more often than rewarding--writing to other people comes easily and gives me a lot of happiness. The purpose of the blog is to give me a venue that requires me to write regularly--and for an audience--but that does not require the sort of revision and editing that goes into my other writing. Hopefully this will not be an excuse for me to keep a dull, ungrammatical, or overly rambling blog!
Bonus goal: If at all possible, get paid for at least one work in which a murder occurs, such as a mystery story. In talking about economic woes with friends I have joked about this and suggested that if I can draw even a modest return on a story in which someone is murdered, I can boast that I "killed someone for money" in 2011.
I also had to address some of my anxiety about publishing my writing. I tend to worry about letting other people see what I write, which keeps me from A) getting advice that might help me grow as a writer and B) getting anything I have written published. But the more I thought about it, I actually write a lot of material that is published, at least in the sense of being made publicly available. I write letters--actual ink-on-paper letters, not e-mail--to friends and family, I write finding aids and MARC records at work, and in the past I had a job as a technical writer, where not only did I write every day, I was actually being paid to write. When I give myself that much credit, I can acknowledge that I already write on a daily basis, almost always for the consumption of at least one other person, and now and in the past as a significant part of my jobs. Sure, no one is buying a paperback copy of finding aids I have written for films at the Wisconsin Historical Society, but I still have an audience in mind, and I know records I have written are read and used by other people.
With that in mind, my resolutions:
1. This year, I will write at least two works, outside of my job as an archivist, for publication. I have to try to find a publisher for them, by submitting them to magazines or sites for web fiction. I do not have to be paid a specific amount, nor do I have to win any awards (both of these are issues more or less out of my control at this point), I just have to get something that I have written out there for other people to read and criticize, and twice.
2. I will try to write for my own projects at least 3 times a week, for at least one hour at a time. This is a "baby step" in the process of making writing a part of my normal routine, but it is realistic. So far this year I have had two successful weeks and one unsuccessful week. But I have a few nights each week to myself, and these are perfect times to turn off the TV and the radio, disconnect from Facebook, and just sit and write.
3. To help make writing an integral part of my life, I will keep up written correspondence and I will start keeping a blog. I have been writing letters to people since last fall, and I find this an immensely satisfying activity. As opposed to writing short stories or essays--which can be frustrating more often than rewarding--writing to other people comes easily and gives me a lot of happiness. The purpose of the blog is to give me a venue that requires me to write regularly--and for an audience--but that does not require the sort of revision and editing that goes into my other writing. Hopefully this will not be an excuse for me to keep a dull, ungrammatical, or overly rambling blog!
Bonus goal: If at all possible, get paid for at least one work in which a murder occurs, such as a mystery story. In talking about economic woes with friends I have joked about this and suggested that if I can draw even a modest return on a story in which someone is murdered, I can boast that I "killed someone for money" in 2011.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Scope and Content Note
Hello! Welcome to the start of my blog. In the world of archives, a "scope and content note" is a key part of the finding aid, or catalog record that helps users find a collection. The scope and content note describes what categories of materials are in a collection, what subjects they cover, and how thoroughly a subject is covered. I am opening with a scope and content note because archives-based nerdery is part of who I am, and "Introductions" has been done before.
I am recent LIS grad trying to get my first real job in the archives world. Since the start of grad school I have been working for a film archive in Madison, Wisconsin, first as a student worker and now as an LTE. My job is often interesting, but it is still a low-wage, part-time job. So now I am searching for more substantial work, unfortunately at a time when many LIS grads are all competing for a few jobs. This can make life stressful and frustrating at times; I like to think that my life is like The Hunger Games, except none of us are trying to do each other in, and a battle royale for a Cataloging Archivist job probably would not make for an exciting young adult novel.
I am also a nerd, by which I mean a book nerd. I should be more specific; I am pulp literature nerd. My love for the authors and magazines that filled newsstands in the first part of the 20th century--and offered endless combinations of monsters, detectives, zeppelins, flapper girls, and the occasional Satan. Accordingly, I sometimes have that dream where the Weird Fiction Archive desperately needs me to be their lead archivist. Also, they have money with which to pay me. Also, they actually exist. Well, maybe one day.
That is how I came by my blog title. It is a little like "Cat Fancy," but without cats. Instead it is full of smudgy ink, from the pulps and from manuscript collections at the archive. Besides, I am a lefty, and I smudge everything I write.
I am recent LIS grad trying to get my first real job in the archives world. Since the start of grad school I have been working for a film archive in Madison, Wisconsin, first as a student worker and now as an LTE. My job is often interesting, but it is still a low-wage, part-time job. So now I am searching for more substantial work, unfortunately at a time when many LIS grads are all competing for a few jobs. This can make life stressful and frustrating at times; I like to think that my life is like The Hunger Games, except none of us are trying to do each other in, and a battle royale for a Cataloging Archivist job probably would not make for an exciting young adult novel.
I am also a nerd, by which I mean a book nerd. I should be more specific; I am pulp literature nerd. My love for the authors and magazines that filled newsstands in the first part of the 20th century--and offered endless combinations of monsters, detectives, zeppelins, flapper girls, and the occasional Satan. Accordingly, I sometimes have that dream where the Weird Fiction Archive desperately needs me to be their lead archivist. Also, they have money with which to pay me. Also, they actually exist. Well, maybe one day.
That is how I came by my blog title. It is a little like "Cat Fancy," but without cats. Instead it is full of smudgy ink, from the pulps and from manuscript collections at the archive. Besides, I am a lefty, and I smudge everything I write.
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