den_down_unda, posts by tag: elegy - LiveJournal

I've noticed that when famous authors pass, their fans often express the wish that they find themselves in the worlds they created. When Douglas Adams died, all sorts of folks said they "hoped to catch you at Milliways," or the like. Again with Pterry, plenty of people hoped he would "swim with Great A'Tuin" or "visit Ankh-Morpork. To which I reply, "Wow, you must have hated them.

Certainly, when Anne McCaffrey died, it was cool to wish that she'd ride on a dragon, and I'm sure Tolkien would be very happy in the Shire, but Pern is pretty idealized and the Shire was the good Professor's idea of what England should have been like. No one with any sense would want to live in a fantasy or sf world written by a realist. (Hell, no one would really want to live on Pern either, if they thought it through.)

Yeah, the Disc runs on narrativium, and Adams' Galaxy was a wild and wacky place, but they had real things to say about society and a realistic view of human nature. I'm pretty sure the last place either would have wanted to end up was in a world that reflected their most deep-seated views of people. So instead, I hope Pterry (and DNA) find themselves not in the places they created, but in the places they really belong.

In a better world, one where the profit motive was secondary to emotional well-being, and where our emotions functioned in more predictable ways, employees would be allowed to submit a bereavement list: a list of people whose deaths are, no questions asked, grounds for an employee to immediately go home and mourn. Of course, that's not the world we live in. My boss would laugh her ass off (and not with me, but at me) if I asked to go home because an author died and I just can't.... And of course, it's hard to predict exactly which deaths are going to have the most impact, once you get past parents and siblings and all that.

Of course, in this case, it wasn't hard to predict at all. Sir Terry Pratchett had been sick with early onset Alzheimer's for almost eight years, and the changes in his travel schedule plus the recent interview Neil Gaiman gave let us all know that his trip on this world was nearing its end. And I knew I would be wrecked when he went, and so I am, sitting here in this stupid cubicle, my eyes with with tears (for the second time in two weeks). My first Pratchett was The Light Fantastic, which was very much in the "Douglas Adams of fantasy" mold. It was funny as all get out--I'll never forget Mount Skund, whose name meant, in the local language, "Your Finger, You Fool." It wasn't very deep, though. It mostly said, "Yes, fantasy, with its pretenses and its reflections of the real world, is ripe for mockery and laughter as any other art form."

It probably wasn't until Guards! Guards! that I realized how amazing the Discworld and Terry Pratchett were. While Hitchhikers never really grew beyond the jokes, Pratchett's world did, in so many deep and wonderful ways. The satirist's eye grew sharper, and the deep and abiding love of his fellows shone forth more brightly, and of the humor remained as gleeful as ever. Death was "a shade reproachfully," and "Cantate and Fugue for Someone Who Has Trouble With the Pedals" was his idea of a simile. And now, of course, he's taken Death's hand, having finally succumbed to the embuggerance, and left us all behind, poorer for his loss but richer for having shared in his joy, and his wisdom, and his anger.

Farewell, Sir Pterry, I hope the harvest was as gentle and caring as the Reaper Man could make it.

Usually when I weep quietly at my desk, it's because of my job. But today, we lost a legend, and a beloved elder of the sf tribe.

I'm having trouble encompassing the idea of a world without Leonard Nimoy in it. His passing is one of those that I didn't expect to resound quite so strongly, but it has and will, I suspect, continue to do so. Spock was never my favorite character on Star Trek. Bones (and to a lesser extent, Scotty) was.

But Spock best embodied the open-handed, optimistic vision of Star Trek, and Leonard Nimoy seems to have lived that vision most strongly. The outpouring of respect and love from everyone he touched, from costars to colleagues to fans, tells that story, as does the sheer breadth of his art: acting; directing; writing; photography; and even singing (which maybe wasn't as artistic as the rest). You could say that he lived out the Vulcan credo of "infinite diversity in infinite combinations" just in his own life.

Surely it's fair to say the he lived long and prospered and we also prospered for having shared in his art, even on Twitter, where he offered himself as everyone's honorary grandfather, because well, many of us needed a grandfather even if just in 140 characters. So thank you, sir, and ad astra. I loved you. Give my love to De, Jimmy, Majel, and Gene.

A strange way to headline a memorial post, I suppose, but it will make sense eventually. Anne McCaffrey, author of the Pern books, passed away today at the age of 85. Like with David Eddings, I suppose I shouldn't be so sad. She had a full rich life, and I hadn't willingly picked up one of her new books since Masterharper of Pern more than a decade ago. The problem with that logic is that it's not my 40-year-old self that's upset, it's my 14-year-old self, still riding along somewhere inside of me, still thrilled that he finally chose to crack that green book with the dragon on it and found out that it did indeed live up to its promise.

I loved the Pern books as a teen and young adult and I suppose I still do, even though I'm much more aware of gender politics and class issues and how quickly understanding sped past an aging divorcee who started writing to balance the scales between the sexes is sf, but ended up authoring some pretty reactionary stuff. It doesn't matter, though, because Menolly was the first fictional character I fell in love with (my ardor has since faded, but I still hate Sebell), and Lessa and F'lar were awesome, and Masterharper Robinton was one of the coolest characters I've ever read. And the dragons! They rode around on dragons who were their best friends! And if that seems a little hokey now, well, for an awkward teen, that was the best thing ever.

So when I saw that she died, I swore and swore, and then started to cry, and then thought of my dear, dear friend diadem8. If my inner 14-year-old is so torn up, her inner 5-year-old must be devastated. She got to Pern earlier than I did, and she's one of the few people I know who loved those books more than me. Di, I don't know how you feel right now, and if you're seeing this for the first time and welling up, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. Annie's gone between and we're all a little poorer.

This has been a pretty shitty year on the "people I don't want dying doing it anyway" front. Of course, one of life's most bitter ironies is that as you get older and collect friends, acquaintances, and favorites, pretty much every year is a pretty shitty year on that front. I mention this not only because I'm morbid by nature, but because Joel Rosenberg died last night.

My friend Charlie lent me the first three Guardians of the Flame books when I was about 15 or 16. They were standard D&D-kids-go-into-the-world-they're-playing-in books, except of course that they were anything but standard. One of the seven kids has muscular dystrophy, and Rosenberg wrote straight out about what it meant, and another dies within the first thirty or so pages. And the series' overarching theme is about freedom—the titular "Flame" being the flame of freedom and how freedom isn't free. Given that the main tool of freedom was technological advantage (i.e., we have guns and the bad guys don't), I suppose I wasn't surprised to learn later that he was a strong advocate for Second Amendment rights and literally wrote the book on acquiring a concealed carry permit in his home state of Minnesota.

Unfortunately, due to the realities of publishing (and possibly his changing interests), GotF withered on the vine before he could complete his story arc. Every so often, I'd stop by an associated website to see if there was any news on the new book front, and there never was. So I think it's fair to say that there wouldn't have been any more no matter how long he lived, but that doesn't make me feel any better. He was good friends with other authors whose work I love or have loved, including Steven Brust, Ray Feist, and John M. Ford. And now they've lost another friend, and I've lost another tie to my teen years. But most of all, his wife lost her husband and his children their father, and someone who did his damnedest to make the world a better place (though I may not always have agreed with his idea of better) is gone. And that's worthy of mourning, I think.

Got into an argument on a message board once. Someone had posted about the death of a member of the Dave Matthews Band and someone else gave him grief for his excessive reaction to the passing of someone he didn't know. My response was that there are many different types of relationship and that a feeling of closeness that only went one way, like being a fan of someone's work, wasn't any less valid a relationship than any other kind (except where leaving boiled bunnies on the lawn was a common modus operandi; that's just fucked in the head). I bring this up because, as the lovely ladybird97 noted on Saturday, Diana Wynne Jones passed away.

You never know how you're going to be affected by something like that. I've spent a lot more time in my life with David Eddings books than with DWJ, but I wasn't nearly as sad when Big Dave passed as I am now. Partly, I think it's because Diana Wynne Jones was still writing good books, where Eddings had pretty much shut it down after the fiasco that was "The Dreamers." Mostly though, I think it's because Dave was for me; there was something I plugged into that I never really left behind, but once I grew out of adolescence, it wasn't anything I needed to share with anyone. Diana Wynne Jones wrote books for everyone, so when you became a fan of hers, you wanted everyone to be a fan. I've given DWJ books to at least a half-dozen children, but also to adults because they were just this wonderful experiences you wanted everyone to have. And even if you didn't like one of her books (I still haven't finished the Dalemark books), she wrote with variety and vitality in a range of styles, so there's probably one you will enjoy.

My favorite of her books will probably always be Howl's Moving Castle with its wonderfully evocative opening line, "In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three." I just found out that Diana Wynne Jones was the eldest of three and didn't have a particularly happy childhood, which undoubtedly informed that story. Dark Lord of Derkholm is another favorite. But one of her lesser known books, The Homeward Bounders, is the one that stuck with me the most. Like most of her books, it's by turns clever, funny, intricate, and serious, but a thread of desperate sadness runs through this one, not melodramatic, but inherit to the plot and the story and paid off in just the right increment at the ending. And now, that desperate sadness is reflected again in the loss of one of the children's fantasists who got it, who understood better than anyone else what it means to be a children's author. Offsetting this is the joy of knowing that her books are still there for us, back in print, and hopefully available for as long as children (and adults) need stories to excite them, make them laugh, make them care, and make them think.

Frank Buckles died yesterday at the ripe old age of 110. Apparently, from his obituary, Mr. Buckles was a pretty remarkable man, who traveled the world well into his 50s and then retired to be a farmer, a job he took seriously enough to still be riding a tractor at 104. But what makes Mr. Buckles' passing noteworthy is his first job, Corporal Frank Buckles, U.S. Army ambulance driver in World War One. Cpl. Buckles was the last surviving American veteran of "the war to end all wars."

Over five years ago, I wrote this post about the loss that such passages represent. I think it's still relevant (and one of better things I've written), but there are other things to think about. Both my uncles who passed in the last couple of months were military men, serving just in or after Korea. Both had the flag folding ceremony at their funerals. Another one of my late uncles was also a military man, as was my father's father, who served in World War I and took home a bunch of stories and a case of dropsy that haunted him for the rest of his long life.

Eventually, all those lives ended, as Cpl. Buckles' life ended, taking the memories of a time before our time, a time now consigned to two dimensions with the loss of the last living memories. So, Godspeed, sir, and may we all meet again in a place where the memories can come alive again, not in fear and pain but in the joy of experience and the recognition of lives well lived.

Crap. Brian Jacques died.

He was the author of the phenomenally popular "Redwall" series: novels set in an Abbey of forest creatures--mice, squirrels, hares, the odd badger, etc. Every book had a new problem for the peaceful abbey-dwellers to overcome, usually in the form of a horde of evil rats, foxes, stoats, weasels, etc. And each book had wordplay and puzzles and wonderful descriptions of sumptuous feasts.

I got on the Redwall train right at the beginning when my editor cousin gave me a copy of the first book, Redwall, for Christmas when I was 15 or 16. I also got off pretty early, after about the 9th or 10th book (the last release was the 21st), because the books were charming but repetitive and the new characters seemed like pale shadows of the ones I'd loved in the first few books. And now's gone, and I'm sad, but hopeful that somewhere my very favorite character, Basil Stag Hare, is greeting him with a hearty hello and telling him, "Tuck in, Brian! The feast lasts forever."

My thoughts on the aftermath of the Giffords shooting are pretty chaotic. First of all, a nine-year-old girl died because she was precocious and intelligent enough to be interested in politics and so wanted to meet her Congresswoman. That's just hearrbreakingly sad and horrible. Another one is that people of all sides are yelling for people on other sides to "stop politicizing the tragedy." But what does that mean? It is political to say that someone showed extremely bad judgment in calling for "Second Amendment" remedies for recalcitrant Congresspeople? Is it political to say that they think the shooting wouldn't have happened if there were less idiots on the radio calling everyone names? Is it political to wonder if the crime might not have happened access to weapons was more carefully restricted?

Some idiots are even saying that the shooting wasn't "political." Folks, the killer targeted a Congresswoman because she was a Congresswoman. It don't get more political than that. What people are trying to say is that the killer may not have been a partisan associated with a major political subculture. This appears to be true; we may have to chalk this one up bad advice from to the little blue people who talk to Garey Busey. (Though it does make me wonder how an obvious lunatic could buy a gun no problem a week before the shooting.)

But that gets me to the one point I feel I need to make. As after the Murrah Building bombing in 1995, focus is again turning on the vitriol in out political discourse. People are saying that, for example, Sarah Palin's violent language (making "targets" of congresspeople on a fundraising letter; urging "freedom loving" Americans to "not retreat: RELOAD!") contributed to the murders. Other people are saying that's unfair since the shooting isn't associated with any group that Governor Palin supports, etc., etc., ad nauseam. The one thing I will say as someone who suffers from anxiety disorder is that free-floating negativity like hate language and hyperbolic predictions of doom can definitely have a negative effect on people struggling with mental illness.

And this isn't about apportioning blame, but about looking in the mirror and taking responsibility. The shooter has to live with the responsibility for pulling the trigger, his family/support systems have to bear responsibility of not getting (enough) help for him, and the people who pollute the national discourse with hate have to bear responsibility for making the world enough less livable that a troubled kid can feel compelled to off his Congresswman and as many other folks as he can take down. So what do you say? If we can each remove a little of our inner asshole, maybe we can lower the emotional pollution enough to maybe see the sun every now and then.

So, George Steinbrenner, after being in declining health for several years and handing control of the Yankees over to his sons, passed away today at the age of 80. It's hard to describe the welter of emotions the news set off, because he was so many things: tyrant, fan, loudmouth, philanthropist, father figure, big brother, friend, enemy, lifeline, and ruler of the Yankee Empire. He was The Boss, a name given in scorn and adopted in pride.

Bill Gallo used to draw him as General von Steingrabber, in a full Prussian military uniform with epaulets on his shoulders and a spiked helmet on his head. He'd watch the Yankees with a stein of beer in one hand on a TV set into a giant foaming beer barrel, and in a mock-German accent deliver pronouncements on the state of the Yankees, baseball, and the world. That's why I usually referred to him as "the General" instead of "the Boss."

The General persona was actually pretty appropriate, as he was a military man early in life and tried to bring a military precision to Yankeedom, though he often failed because of his own bombastic personality. He could be hell on his employees. Bob Watson walked away from the Yankee GM job because he decided he wanted to sleep nights. Brian Cashman is six years older than Theo Epstein. He looks like he's thirty years older. But he valued loyalty, and hard as this may be to believe, he showed it to members of the Yankee family, over and over and over again.

He kept bringing Billy back in part to help him–in the mid to late 1980s, Billy Martin was on a crash course with death, and George hoped the responsibility of running the Yankees would save him. Didn't work. He gave Doc and Darryl chance after chance because they were New York guys and he wanted to help them. And if you believe Darryl Strawberry. he did. If you were a Yankee, you got a hand from the Boss once your career was over, to guide you on the next step, keep you in the game, or just make sure you got a check every week.

I used to hate him when I was teen in the '80s and he'd go out and blow money and prospects on the likes of Steve Trout or Andy Hawkins and say the Yankees were about to win again. And of course, he was banned from baseball twice, the second time at the end of the '80s, when the team had reached rock bottom and was basically a joke. We cheered so loudly when he was gone, because we thought it meant the bad times were over.

But absence makes the heart grow fonder, and oddly enough, we cheered loudly when he came back, even if he did pose as Napoleon on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And of course, that's when the real glory came. 15 playoff appearances in 16 years, 14 division titles, 7 pennants, 5 World Series, and a new pride and understanding of what it means to be a Yankee. Even though the seeds were sown when he was gone—probably because he was gone—he was the one who kept it all going, keeping his guys, bringing in the best other guys, demanding excellence.

And now that he's gone, I think the most appropriate way I can honor is passing is to say that I, someone who prayed nightly, cried, and begged for George M. Steinbrenner to sell the team in the late 80s, now hope the Yankees are not sold and stay in the Steinbrenner family as long as there are Steinbrenners who care about the Yankees and as long as there are Yankees to be cared about.