Thomas M. Disch Found Dead

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 6, 2008 
Filed Under disch-thomas | 1 Comment

Matt Staggs telephoned me this afternoon with extremely sad news. Science fiction legend Thomas M. Disch was found dead on July 4th. He committed suicide. I am especially stunned, because I interviewed the man only a few weeks ago for The Bat Segundo Show. And as soon as I get my emotions collected here, I’m going to work on mastering this hour-length conversation and get it up as soon as I can. I will have much more to say about this visit very soon.

But in the meantime, you can read Ellen Datlow’s remembrance here. To hell with genre. The literary world lost one of its most acerbic voices. And it’s a damn shame that so many of the snobs didn’t appreciate Disch because he “merely wrote science fiction.”

[UPDATE: You can now listen to the interview here. Disch lived in an apartment with scant decor. There were books and a few paintings. But that was pretty much it. He told me that his other home in the country had been overrun with mildew. And he had nowhere else to go, no place to live other than this apartment. In the end, Disch lived entirely for his art and paid the terrible price for daring to stick to his guns.

I have been informed that this was the last face-to-face interview that Disch conducted. Because of these circumstances, this was the hardest podcast I've ever had to put together. But I felt compelled to get it up as quickly as I could. It took a few minutes for the two of us to get into a groove, but he did seem to enjoy the conversation, smiling and laughing, lighting up and cracking many sardonic jokes. The discussion touched upon death and literary posterity. It seemed evident from Disch's book that these were important themes for him. But because of the unexpected prescience of Disch's answers, this podcast is now very painful for me to listen to. Listening to his answers in hindsight, part of me wonders if he had already made his decision. When the conversation was over, Disch asked me many questions about what I did, the people I interviewed, and asked if he could get a tape of the podcast. I wondered if these inquiries arose because of his loneliness. I told him that I would certainly send him a copy of the podcast when it was finished, but I never got the chance. He also asked if our conversation would appear in print. I told him that I would do my best, but that I was at the behest of editors and shrinking newspaper space. I pitched a few editors on a profile piece, but these efforts fell on deaf ears. I remain extremely saddened that Disch, who merely wanted to be appreciated as a poet and who hoped that he could hold onto his apartment on Union Square West, felt that suicide was the only answer. Perhaps he was a lonely man still trying to come to terms with the death of his partner. Perhaps he had declared himself a deity so that the world would finally notice his literary contributions. I don't know if I'm really in the position to judge. But I do hope that this conversation can, in some sense, allow others to appreciate his very special talent.]

[UPDATE 2: A number of remembrances can be found at Enter the Octopus.]

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Remember to Relax

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 6, 2008 
Filed Under Architecture, Best | 1 Comment

To give you a sense of the wonderful laziness that a three-day holiday weekend affords, I should point out that, speaking personally, yesterday’s greatest achievement was making dozens of chocolate chip cookies. Other than that, there was some reading, a considerable amount of slacking off, and many hours in which nearly nothing was accomplished.

I confess this with the hope of informing all that it is perfectly okay to be a bit lazy right now. It seems that workaholics and many freelancing pals are experiencing some difficulties understanding that we are, indeed, in the throes of a holiday weekend. And the only reason I’m serving up blog posts is largely to deposit stray bits of information that pop up while I am essentially doing nothing.

For example, I have spent a portion of the morning contemplating the unusual architectural design of some of the Best Products stores. Best was a chain that died off in 1997. Sadly, there appears to be no visual record of the strange diagonal corner at the Arden Fair outlet in Sacramento. This corner was demolished a good decade ago, with the building revamped to a more boring rectilinear design that befits the mundane exigencies of suburban architectural requirements. But if you were lucky enough to experience this structural quirk, the corner slid out when the store was open and folded neatly into the building’s recess when the store was closed. When the corner was pulled out, the slope was particular ideal if, like me, you were a clumsy teenager with a borrowed skateboard. And it appears that the Houston Best building was even stranger, offering one of the wackiest superstore apices I think I’ve ever seen. So do good things sometimes come with chain stores? Or have we become so committed to relentless homogeneity that we can’t even allow for a flourish or three within the boxy buildings that come with gentrification? And is gentrification remotely justifiable if these monolithic entities divert from the building boilerplate a bit? I was pleased as punch to learn that 600 Starbucks outlets were biting the dust in the forthcoming months. With rare exceptions, I only enter a Starbucks if I have to pee. But would I be more forgiving of Starbucks if, say, they served up a building that was even a tad incongruous? Not bloody likely, given that they’ve attempted to abscond with our language with their ineffable terms for small, medium, and large.

This segue should reveal that it is very difficult for some active minds to accept the notion of a holiday. I had a wonderfully disturbing dream last night that gave me a vital component to a narrative I am working on. But if you are afraid of relaxing, consider the Archimedes principle. Your mind will likely be set off by something anyway. So there’s no crime in stepping away from the computer. You have one day left before the crazed week begins again. Enjoy it while it lasts!

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Russell T. Davies’s End

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 6, 2008 
Filed Under davies-russell, doctor who | 7 Comments

Longtime readers of this blog know of my antipathy for Russell T. Davies’s contributions to Doctor Who. So it was with no expectations whatsoever that I fired up “Journey’s End,” the season finale of Doctor Who, assuming that my intelligence and my emotions would be condescended to and that the fanwankery set into motion last week would be taken to new masturbatory heights. Yes, there was a gratuitous appearance from K-9. Yes, there was the Davros-Sarah Jane Smith showdown referencing “Genesis of the Daleks.” The less said about the phony resolution to last week’s cliffhanger, the better. And I could do without the ridiculous manner in which Earth was transported across the galaxy.

But despite these melodramatic flourishes, this episode worked for me. It was a fitting end to Davies’s tenure on the show, bringing in nearly all of his supporting characters and leaving the Doctor more or less where he started at the beginning. I enjoyed the Daleks floating above Nuremberg speaking German. (Alas, Davies’s German is not so good. He got the German verb for “Exterminate!” wrong. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the Nazi parallels.) I liked Davros questioning the Doctor’s motives, which not only echoed the lone Dalek from “Dalek,” but referenced similar talk of genocide from “Genesis of the Daleks.” Let’s not forget that in “Genesis,” the Doctor asked Davros whether he would let loose a virus that would destroy all forms of alien life. And this quiet reference to the show’s longtime continuity was a surprisingly restrained Davies moment that I have to give him props for.

The whisper into Rose’s ear, the heartening future of Sarah Jane Smith having a 14-year-old, and Donna’s fate suggested unspoken connections that called into question the notion of what it is to be a companion to the Doctor. Traveling with the Doctor, whether as a companion or a viewer, involves being at a specific time and place in one’s life. But Davies reminded us with this finale that no matter where one is at in the series, there’s always a thread one can pick up. So at the end of Davies’s run, I have to thank Davies for using his influence to revive Who, while remaining wary of his overall writing contributions during the past four years. Nevertheless, I have every faith that, in the hands of Steven Moffatt, Who will truly demonstrate its potential to capture our imagination. And I’m glad that Davies closed out the show with a rousing, if problematic denouement, without entirely taking the easy way out.

Having said all this, however, there’s a part of me that wonders if Moffatt will continue portraying Tennant’s Doctor as the amiable metrosexual we all know him to be. To some degree, Tennant is the Alan Alda Doctor. The geeky guy who knows how to order the best wine at an Italian restaurant, but who will probably get his ass kicked in a roadhouse if the cops don’t show up in time. There were a few reminders of the tough Eccleston Doctor in “Journey’s End,” and I believe Tennant is capable of inhabiting this emotional territory. But I certainly hope we begin to see more of the Doctor’s dark side over the next few years. If Moffatt wimps out, I’ll be one of the first to lock his writing contributiosn in my crosshairs.

[RELATED: Worrisome io9 speculation that Moffatt is overrated.]

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Wilhelm Scream

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 5, 2008 
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

For more information on the scream, see this and this.

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Carolyn Kellogg: Not a Fan of Don Lee

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 5, 2008 
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Pinky’s Paperhaus: “It’s OK if you have a guy leave a highly successful NY art career, even a People’s 50 Most Beautiful People kind of successful art career, for a smalltown California Brussels sprouts farm, and it’s OK that he’s the last holdout against the evil corporate developers who want his land for a golf course, it’s even OK, despite the fact that we’re to believe he’s the misanthropist of the century, that he makes friends with a local surfer, of all the local surfers the one who lost a foot in a freak shark attack, I’m still OK, even here, but it’s not OK that the farmer has teamed up with said surfer to grow some pot on his property, the same property he so desperately is trying to save from the developers, and accidentally grows too much and he can’t believe the surfer has told his friends about it… because none of that fits.”

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If You Don’t Love America, Roll Your Own Nation

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 5, 2008 
Filed Under Micronations | Leave a Comment

Chicago Tribune: “Welcome to the Republic of Molossia.”

In similar DIY fashion, this gentleman has built his own rollercoaster. (via MeFi)

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Pop Open the Champagne; That Racist Motherfucker Jesse Helms is Dead

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 4, 2008 
Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

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Subwaymarine

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 4, 2008 
Filed Under Atlantic, Environment, Fish, New York, Ocean, subway | Leave a Comment

Ever wonder what happens to abandoned subway cars? Well, apparently, retired subway cars have proven to be quite helpful to the fish population just off coast of Delaware. Cars are dumped into the water, and the subway car’s roomy confines has resulted in fish taking to the cars like, well, water. (There have been other efforts to dump aircraft, automobiles, and other vehicles into the ocean to create these reefs. But the fish seem to like the subway cars the best.) Red Bird Reef, named after the famed Redbird cars being used for this experiment, has seen a 400-fold increase in marine food per square inch over the past seven years.

Red Bird Reef is not without controversy. The American Littoral Society has expressed concern that the small levels of asbestos within the glue used to affix floor panels and the like might prove damaging to the environment. And since there are only so many retired subway cars to go around, other states are trying to compete for the subway cars. (New York provides these subway cars for free.)

So is this a waste of manmade resources? A sullying of the environment? Or is it very possible that, given the declining fish populations in the Atlantic, it takes this extraordinary manmade reef to generate a sustainable fish population again?

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Reason #482 Why Salman Rushdie is a Colossal Douchebag

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 4, 2008 
Filed Under Rushdie, Salman | 4 Comments

Los Angeles Times: “It was as a puckish media figure rather than as that ‘employee’ that he attended Vanity Fair’s post-Oscar party and met Robert Altman — one of Rushdie’s proudest moments. ‘Late that night,’ Rushdie said, ‘I found him leaning against a bench at the side of the room, cradling his Academy Award. I sat down next to him and said hi. And I said, ‘Can I hold your Oscar?’ He said, ‘It’s bad luck, you know. . . . If you hold someone else’s Oscar you’ll never win your own.’ I said, ‘Give me the damn Oscar.’ So I held Bob’s Oscar. He died a few months later. It was the last time I’d seen him.’”

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Roundup

Written by Edward Champion

Posted on July 3, 2008 
Filed Under Roundup, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

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