A Word About The Future

Lately, I’ve been downloading some classic science fiction from Audible. I finished “The Robots of Dawn,” by Isaac Asimov and am more than half way through “Player Piano,” by Kurt Vonnegut. Both stories were written in the mid-twentieth century and set in the future. Vonnegut’s is in a near future that could be now, and Asimov’s is in a far flung future in which humans have colonized multiple planets and built “humaniform” robots who can do much of the hardest work and are kept in check by the three laws of robotics.

Asimov predicts a world with interstellar flight, advanced robots, and sexual morays vastly different from those of mid-twentieth century earth. Vonnegut predicts a much closer world in which efficient machines have taken over most human jobs, so that only the very intelligent are employed as engineers and managers, only a tiny proportion of the population has the chance to go to college, and even secretaries and barbers need a PhD to be qualified for their jobs. Everyone else must join the army or work on a road crew and settle for government pay.

The thing that amazes/annoys me is that neither one of them, in all their intelligence and imaginative capacity, conceived of a future world in which women could fill roles beyond wife/lover, secretary, or homemaker. There are no women taking significant roles in the work force or in the course of history in either novel. Are the 1950’s really so far away? Both these men were very intelligent, but boy did they get it wrong about human potential. I mean, I don’t have a single robot to my name, but I’ve had a significant job since finishing college. My family relies on my income just as much as my husband’s. In fact, I’ve been gainfully employed in my field since before finishing high school. I also have a high (erroneously labeled as “genius level”) IQ and a physics degree, both of which would have placed me in a desirable position in the world of either book. But no, women figure in both books as objects of attraction for the main characters, secretaries, or wives whose sole function seems to be party attendance and social climbing. In Player Piano, most housework is finished in seconds by automated machines, but still the women do not work. Yes, most of the populous is underemployed in this story, but the men are still sent out to do something.

I’m hoping that both authors changed their minds over the course of the next fifty years. Both lived long lives but are now dead, so I’ll have to take this up with them in the after life. (Both were secular humanists, so I’m not sure we’ll actually be able to contact each other in the after life. Maybe there are day passes to other eternities?) I won’t stop reading their books, but I sure do find science fiction stories written by women to be a relief after this stuff!

Why I Love My Work

The other day, I spent most of my work time online, first researching depression era feedsack dresses, and then at a motorcycle parts page, among other things. The best part is, I wasn't screwing around--that's what I was supposed to be doing! Both were research for "Grapes of Wrath" coming up in the fall. OK, so that explains feedsack dresses, but motorcycle parts? As you may recall, Rosasharn is pregnant throughout the book, so we'll need to make a pregnancy pad for the (hopefully not pregnant) student who plays that part. I like to use open cell air filter foam for padding, as it has a nice texture and memory, but more especially because it dries quickly after washing or sweating. The motorcycle place sells sheets of foam so that if you have a vintage bike you can't get new filters for, you can create one. I love the spirit of that all on it's own, and am giddy with the idea of further re purposing the foam for a pregger pad!

Recommended Reading

There's been some news lately about banned books. There is even a list of banned books circulating on the internet, erroneously claimed to be a list of books Sarah Palin asked to be banned from her local library. While that is inaccurate (after all, she couldn't have asked to ban any of the Harry Potter books back in 1996, before they were written) the list itself is taken from a compilation list of books that have been banned in different places at different times. It's a compelling list--some of the best books I've ever read are on it.

So I'm reprinting the list here, and I'd love to encourage all my friends and family, and anyone else with a blog who comes across this, to do the same thing I'm doing. Print the list, and in some way mark which of the books on it you've read. I'd love to know what you thought of them, individually or in general. I know a lot of my fiber friends love novels, as do college pals, theater friends, family, and everyone else I know who checks on my blog. Drum up some readership in the comments with a link to your post, I'd love to see it!

Here's the list. Books I've read are in green.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes s
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective*
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower**
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

*I never read all of "Our Bodies, Ourselves," but I did read the chapter on lesbians in my aunt's copy when I was a teenager, so that has to count for something.

**I've read the Bible a few times now, but I haven't read this particular translation.

My best criteria for whether something is a good book is whether it changes me, and many of the books I've highlighted here did just that. They're intelligent, they're challenging, not one of them is gratuitous or immoral. Interesting that only worthwhile books get banned. For instance, there isn't a single vapid romance novel on this list. I think I'll start reading the rest of the list.

Happy Birthday Ray Bradbury, You Old Goat!

Today is Ray Bradbury's 87th birthday. I've loved everything I've read by him, and Mr. Bradbury has the special distinction of having begun my love for audio books.

Several years ago Chris and I lived an hour and a half apart. We visited each other most weekends. One particular Friday night I was driving out to visit Chris and was especially tired of the NY State Thruway, especially the bit between exits 47 and 50. I was driving rather fast to get the trip over with as quickly as possible, which didn't work, since State Troopers like to really take their time when giving out speeding tickets. I'm pretty sure that's intentional.

I decided that the best way to take the same old trip more slowly was to make the trip itself more enjoyable, or at least interesting. Thus entered my first book on tape borrowed from the Rochester Public Library: a collection of Bradbury short stories. I had always sneered at books on tape as being "not really reading" and got a short story collection because it was just for the car, and just for 3 hours. What a great collection! Bradbury read it himself, and it was so compelling that what I didn't finish on the ride I brought into the house with me to finish reading right away--I couldn't wait until the next trip to finish it.

Of course I realize now that audio books are still reading. I'm still using my imagination, and the language centers of my brain, I'm just taking in the information auditorially instead of visually. If I was blind I would read either auditorially or through touch--both still count as reading. Also, I'm now back to reading two books a week, whereas previously in my post-college adult life it was more like 2 books a year. Now some nice person reads me a story while I cook, drive, clean, or the like, and I don't even need to make them a cup of tea.

More recently, my friend Bruce introduced me to an excellent science fiction pod cast: Escape Pod. Every week I download the podcast for free and again, some nice person reads me a short story and doesn't even ask for a sandwich in return. Escape pod is created and run completely by one guy who manages to post a story, complete with well thought out intro, every Thursday. I've been really impressed with the quality of the stories especially two recent ones by Nancy Kress*. There are very few I don't enjoy or get some good thought or mental stimulation from. Only a very small portion of those I don't care for could really be called bad stories. I think that's partially because a good short story has to have a good idea, no copping out on just following around a few well written characters for 200 pages. When it can be read in 30 minutes, there has to be a good idea and a decent plot, you can't get by on charm alone. Also, good science fiction or good speculative fiction has to have a strong underlying idea to work. Short science fiction is the best of both worlds.

I'm a little afraid that other short fiction pod casts won't measure up. Does anyone out there have others to suggest? I tried a few knitting pod casts and they almost killed me. I know that other folks like them, but the ones I tried were either so boring they reminded me of the Saturday night live episodes that spoof NPR, or they were frustrating because I had to listen to two people talk about their knitting that I couldn't see. Plus I don't like to listen to cackling on headphones.

So a huge thank you to Ray Bradbury for his excellent fiction. Something Wicked This Way Comes is one of the best discussions of good and evil I've ever read. I think he's put his finger on something that one of my other literary heroes, C. S. Lewis unfortunately missed when writing his Space trilogy: if you attempt to fight evil, evil has already won. That's what makes the ending of Jedi so great. Also, go out and get a hold of the animated Halloween special "The Halloween Tree," written by Ray Bradbury. It's sort of a "true meaning of Halloween" story that my pagan friends would love.

* Nancy Kress was sort of the terminal guest of honor at a science fiction convention that used to happen annually in Niagara Falls. I hadn't read any of her writing at the time, and was sort of negative about it being "oh, her again," every year, not realizing that she is a really great science fiction author who happens to live outside of Rochester. My apologize for my young ignorance, Nancy--I hope to run into you in the grocery store some day.