Behold, Waters Rise up out of the North*
Eastern Pennsylvania, upstate New York, New Jersey, and Maryland are drowning under the weight of a storm that has dumped up to 13 inches of rain in the past four days. Despite a lull in the nearly week-long heavy rains, the Delaware, Schuylkill, and Susquehanna Rivers - and other rivers and streams already near or over their banks - were still rising and expected to crest between late tonight and Friday. The Delaware and the Schuylkill are the two rivers that meet in Philadelphia; the Delaware forms PA’s eastern border with New York and New Jersey, which are also hard hit.
These are all places I have lived; when I read about flooded neighborhoods, I know the people who live there, and I have driven the roads that are washed away. The hospital where I was born (and two of my sisters, and where my mother did her nurse’s training) is under water.
The Susquehanna River is flooding almost from the source to where it meets the sea. It rises at Cooperstown, meanders through New York, and dips into PA in Susquehanna County, where nearly the entire community of Hallstead is under water, including buildings and vehicles. My high school cafeteria is full of evacuees. There are a dozen places where floods have cut off country roads. In many places, it’s worse than the terrible Agnes flood in 1972.
In Honesdale, home of Highlights for Children, a small creek flooded, forming a lake ... downtown.
My God—200,000 evacuated from Wilkes-Barre, helicopters doing roof rescues in Bloomsburg and New Milford, water cascading over the floodwalls in Binghamton, evacuations in Vestal.Elsewhere in the Binghamton area, an entire house floated down the Susquehanna.
Residents of Tunkhannock, Wyoming County are stuck. There is no way in and no way out. The Tunkhannock Creek is at one of its highest levels in years. That creek’s source is in Jackson; it wanders along Rte. 92, often well below the road, sometimes right beside it. It rose high enough that the interstate was closed from there to the New York state border—more than 20 miles of freeway.
There are bridges out in a dozen places, mudslides on 81, a breached dam in Nanticoke, major roads—routes 6, 11, 29, 81—closed for flooding, minor roads inundated and undermined. Even Main Street in Forest City was flooded. The creek there is just not that big—usually.
The little creek where I learned to swim is up over Zaner’s Bridge, and there are floods along 487 from Bloomsburg to Benton. Dozens of other small roads are flooded, too.
Nearly 11 inches of rain has fallen in Sussex County, NJ, where I lived in the early years of my marriage. I’ll bet the Pequannock is well over its banks and flooding my former street; shore access for the Delaware from Milford, PA, to Delaware Water Gap is closed, since the river is ten feet over flood stage.
As far as I know. all my friends and family are safe, if somewhat soggy. But I still feel weirdly helpless. This is my countryside, and I'm not there to take care of it. Pure magical thinking, of course. But I miss my place.
*Jeremiah 47: 2
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Didn’t Schadenfreude Play for the Phillies? Yeah, He Was a Southpaw Knuckleballer
The Mets are at the top of the National League East, with the Phils in second place. (Nine and a half games back, but still.) And the Atlanta Braves are at the bottom of the division with a .435 winning percentage.
I gloat.
The Mets are at the top of the National League East, with the Phils in second place. (Nine and a half games back, but still.) And the Atlanta Braves are at the bottom of the division with a .435 winning percentage.
I gloat.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Were You There?
In honor of May 25, some quotations from Terry Pratchett's Night Watch.
“Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That’s why they’re called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.”
“When there’s a kid on the way, well, suddenly a man sees it different. He thinks: my kid’s going to have to grow up in this mess. Time to clean it up. Time to make it a Better World.”
The cemetery of Small Gods was for the people who didn’t know what happened next. They didn’t know what they believed in or if there was life after death and, often, they didn’t know what hit them. They’d gone through life being amiably uncertain, until the ultimate certainty had claimed them at the last. Among the city’s bone orchards the cemetery was the equivalent of the drawer marked Misc, where people were interred in the glorious expectation of nothing very much.
Two types of people laugh at the law: those that break it and those that make it.
Vimes had mixed memories of Captain Tilden. He had been a military man before being given this job as a kind of pension, and that was a bad thing in a senior copper. It meant he looked to Authority for orders and obeyed them, whereas Vimes found it better to look to Authority for orders and then filter those orders through a fine mesh of common sense, adding a generous scoop of creative misunderstanding and maybe even incipient deafness if circumstances demanded, because Authority rarely descended to street level.
“Well done,” said a voice somewhere behind him. “Consciousness to sarcasm in five seconds!” [Editor’s note: I would love an icon of this.]
When you got right down to the bottom of the ladder the rungs were very close together and, oh my, weren’t the women careful about them. In their own way, they were as haughty as any duchess. You might not have much, but you could have Standards. Clothes might be cheap and old but at least they could be scrubbed. There might be nothing behind the front door worth stealing but at least the doorstep could be clean enough to eat your dinner off, if you could’ve afforded dinner. And no one ever bought their clothes from the pawn shop. You’d hit bottom when you did that. No, you bought them from Mr Sun at the shonky shop, and you never asked where he got them from.
“Y’know,” he said, “it’s very hard to talk quantum using a language originally designed to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is.”
The safe had still been there when he made captain, and by then everyone knew the combination was 4-4-7-8 and that no one seemed to know how to change it. The only things worth keeping in it had been the tea and sugar and anything you particularly wanted Nobby to read.
“I comma square bracket recruit’s name square bracket comma do solemnly swear by square bracket recruit’s deity of choice square bracket to uphold the Laws and Ordinances of the city of Ankh-Morpork comma serve the public truft comma and defend the fubjects of His ftroke Her bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket Majefty bracket name of reigning monarch bracket without fear comma favour comma or thought of perfonal fafety semi-colon to purfue evildoers and protect the innocent comma laying down my life if necefsary in the caufe of said duty comma so help me bracket aforesaid deity bracket full stop Gods Save the King stroke Queen bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket full stop.” -- Ankh-Morpork Night Watch oath
And [Lord Winder] saw plots and spies everywhere throughout his waking hours, and had men root them out, and the thing about rooting out plots and spies everywhere is that, even if there are no real plots to begin with, there are plots and spies galore very soon.
They might be very bad at it but they were coppers, and coppers did not respond well to the Happy Families approach: “Hello, chaps, call me Christopher, my door is always open, I’m sure if we all pull together we shall get along splendidly like one big happy family.” They’d seen too many families to fall for that rubbish.
What was it Vetinari had said once? “Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces”?
“And don’t you eyeball me. I’ve been eyeballed by experts, and you look as if you’re desperate for the privy.”
Sam: “Yeah, all right, but everyone knows they torture people.”
Vimes: “Then why doesn’t anyone do anything about it?’
Sam: “‘cos they torture people.”
“You’re an interesting man, sergeant. You make enemies like a craftsman.”
There was the People’s Republic of Treacle Mine Road (Truth! Justice! Freedom! Reasonably priced Love! And a Hard-Boiled Egg!)
He wondered if it was at all possible to give this idiot some lessons in basic politics. That was always the dream, wasn’t it? “I wish I’d known then what I know now”? But when you got older you found out that you now wasn’t you then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.
We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.
Ninety per cent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact.
He felt instinctively that if you were going to fondle a cat while discussing matters of intrigue, then it should be a long-haired white one. It shouldn’t be an elderly street tom with irregular bouts of flatulence.
“Winder is a madman, and that’s not good for business. His cronies are criminals, and that’s not good for business. A new Patrician will need new friends, far-sighted people who want to be part of a wonderful future. One that’s good for business. That’s how it goes. Meetings in rooms. A little diplomacy, a little give and take, a promise here, an understanding there. That’s how real revolutions happen. All that stuff in the streets is just froth...”
Madam: “The world does not deal well with those who don’t pick a side.”
Vimes: “I like the middle.”
Madam: “That gives you two enemies. I’m amazed that you can afford so many, on a sergeant’s pay.”
Coates: “What could you do, then? Arrest [Lord] Winder?”
Vimes: “Of course we can’t, but we ought to be able to. Maybe one day we will. If we can’t then the law isn’t the law, it’s just a way of keeping people down.”
As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up.
“Death to the Fascist Oppressors, Present Company Excepted! There, is everyone happy now?”
“You’re an officer of the law, not a soldier of the government.”
“Coppers were always outnumbered, so being a copper only worked when people let it work. If they refocused and realized you were just another standard idiot with a pennyworth of metal for a badge, you could end up a smear on the pavement.
He wanted to add: you’re a cell of one, Reg. The real revolutionaries are silent men with poker-player faces and probably don’t know or care if you live or die. You’ve got the shirt and the haircut and the sash and you know all the songs, but you’re no urban guerrilla. You’re an urban dreamer. You turn over rubbish bins and scrawl on walls in the name of The People, who’d clip you round the ear if they found you doing it.
Of course, he’d be expelled from the Guild if caught wearing such clothing. He’d reasoned that this was much better than being expelled from the land of the upright and breathing. He’d rather not be cool than be cold.
When he was a boy he’d read books about great military campaigns, and visited the museums and looked with patriotic pride at the paintings of famous cavalry charges, last stands and glorious victories. It had come as rather a shock, when he later began to participate in some of these, to find that the painters had unaccountably left out the intestines.
It’s a real soldiers’ song: sentimental, with dirty bits.
People said things like “quite possibly we shall never know the truth” which meant, in Vimes’s personal lexicon, “I know, or think I know what the truth is, and hope like hell it doesn’t come out, because things are all smoothed over now.”
He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew... then it was too high.
It was regrettable how many rulers of the city had been inhumed by the men in black because they didn’t recognize a chance when they saw it, didn’t know when they’d gone too far, didn’t read the signs, didn’t know when to walk away after embezzling a moderate and acceptable amount of cash. They didn’t realize it when the machine had stopped, when the world was ripe for change, when it was time, in fact, to spend more time with their family in case they ended up spending it with their ancestors.
Vetinari: “‘You know, it has often crossed my mind that those men deserve a proper memorial of some sort.”
Vimes: “Oh yes? In one of the main squares, perhaps?”
Vetinari: “Yes, that would be a good idea.”
Vimes: “Perhaps a tableau in bronze? All seven of them raising the flag, perhaps?”
Vetinari: “Bronze, yes.”
Vimes: “Really? And some sort of inspiring slogan?”
Vetinari: “Yes, indeed. Something like, perhaps, ‘They Did The Job They Had To Do’?”
Vimes: “No. How dare you? How dare you! At this time! In this place! They did the job they didn’t have to do, and they died doing it, and you can’t give them anything. Do you understand? They fought for those who’d been abandoned, they fought for one another, and they were betrayed. Men like them always are. What good would a statue be? It’d just inspire new fools to believe they’re going to be heroes. They wouldn’t want that. Just let them be. For ever.”
In honor of May 25, some quotations from Terry Pratchett's Night Watch.
“Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That’s why they’re called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.”
“When there’s a kid on the way, well, suddenly a man sees it different. He thinks: my kid’s going to have to grow up in this mess. Time to clean it up. Time to make it a Better World.”
The cemetery of Small Gods was for the people who didn’t know what happened next. They didn’t know what they believed in or if there was life after death and, often, they didn’t know what hit them. They’d gone through life being amiably uncertain, until the ultimate certainty had claimed them at the last. Among the city’s bone orchards the cemetery was the equivalent of the drawer marked Misc, where people were interred in the glorious expectation of nothing very much.
Two types of people laugh at the law: those that break it and those that make it.
Vimes had mixed memories of Captain Tilden. He had been a military man before being given this job as a kind of pension, and that was a bad thing in a senior copper. It meant he looked to Authority for orders and obeyed them, whereas Vimes found it better to look to Authority for orders and then filter those orders through a fine mesh of common sense, adding a generous scoop of creative misunderstanding and maybe even incipient deafness if circumstances demanded, because Authority rarely descended to street level.
“Well done,” said a voice somewhere behind him. “Consciousness to sarcasm in five seconds!” [Editor’s note: I would love an icon of this.]
When you got right down to the bottom of the ladder the rungs were very close together and, oh my, weren’t the women careful about them. In their own way, they were as haughty as any duchess. You might not have much, but you could have Standards. Clothes might be cheap and old but at least they could be scrubbed. There might be nothing behind the front door worth stealing but at least the doorstep could be clean enough to eat your dinner off, if you could’ve afforded dinner. And no one ever bought their clothes from the pawn shop. You’d hit bottom when you did that. No, you bought them from Mr Sun at the shonky shop, and you never asked where he got them from.
“Y’know,” he said, “it’s very hard to talk quantum using a language originally designed to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is.”
The safe had still been there when he made captain, and by then everyone knew the combination was 4-4-7-8 and that no one seemed to know how to change it. The only things worth keeping in it had been the tea and sugar and anything you particularly wanted Nobby to read.
“I comma square bracket recruit’s name square bracket comma do solemnly swear by square bracket recruit’s deity of choice square bracket to uphold the Laws and Ordinances of the city of Ankh-Morpork comma serve the public truft comma and defend the fubjects of His ftroke Her bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket Majefty bracket name of reigning monarch bracket without fear comma favour comma or thought of perfonal fafety semi-colon to purfue evildoers and protect the innocent comma laying down my life if necefsary in the caufe of said duty comma so help me bracket aforesaid deity bracket full stop Gods Save the King stroke Queen bracket delete whichever is inappropriate bracket full stop.” -- Ankh-Morpork Night Watch oath
And [Lord Winder] saw plots and spies everywhere throughout his waking hours, and had men root them out, and the thing about rooting out plots and spies everywhere is that, even if there are no real plots to begin with, there are plots and spies galore very soon.
They might be very bad at it but they were coppers, and coppers did not respond well to the Happy Families approach: “Hello, chaps, call me Christopher, my door is always open, I’m sure if we all pull together we shall get along splendidly like one big happy family.” They’d seen too many families to fall for that rubbish.
What was it Vetinari had said once? “Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces”?
“And don’t you eyeball me. I’ve been eyeballed by experts, and you look as if you’re desperate for the privy.”
Sam: “Yeah, all right, but everyone knows they torture people.”
Vimes: “Then why doesn’t anyone do anything about it?’
Sam: “‘cos they torture people.”
“You’re an interesting man, sergeant. You make enemies like a craftsman.”
There was the People’s Republic of Treacle Mine Road (Truth! Justice! Freedom! Reasonably priced Love! And a Hard-Boiled Egg!)
He wondered if it was at all possible to give this idiot some lessons in basic politics. That was always the dream, wasn’t it? “I wish I’d known then what I know now”? But when you got older you found out that you now wasn’t you then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.
We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.
Ninety per cent of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact.
He felt instinctively that if you were going to fondle a cat while discussing matters of intrigue, then it should be a long-haired white one. It shouldn’t be an elderly street tom with irregular bouts of flatulence.
“Winder is a madman, and that’s not good for business. His cronies are criminals, and that’s not good for business. A new Patrician will need new friends, far-sighted people who want to be part of a wonderful future. One that’s good for business. That’s how it goes. Meetings in rooms. A little diplomacy, a little give and take, a promise here, an understanding there. That’s how real revolutions happen. All that stuff in the streets is just froth...”
Madam: “The world does not deal well with those who don’t pick a side.”
Vimes: “I like the middle.”
Madam: “That gives you two enemies. I’m amazed that you can afford so many, on a sergeant’s pay.”
Coates: “What could you do, then? Arrest [Lord] Winder?”
Vimes: “Of course we can’t, but we ought to be able to. Maybe one day we will. If we can’t then the law isn’t the law, it’s just a way of keeping people down.”
As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up.
“Death to the Fascist Oppressors, Present Company Excepted! There, is everyone happy now?”
“You’re an officer of the law, not a soldier of the government.”
“Coppers were always outnumbered, so being a copper only worked when people let it work. If they refocused and realized you were just another standard idiot with a pennyworth of metal for a badge, you could end up a smear on the pavement.
He wanted to add: you’re a cell of one, Reg. The real revolutionaries are silent men with poker-player faces and probably don’t know or care if you live or die. You’ve got the shirt and the haircut and the sash and you know all the songs, but you’re no urban guerrilla. You’re an urban dreamer. You turn over rubbish bins and scrawl on walls in the name of The People, who’d clip you round the ear if they found you doing it.
Of course, he’d be expelled from the Guild if caught wearing such clothing. He’d reasoned that this was much better than being expelled from the land of the upright and breathing. He’d rather not be cool than be cold.
When he was a boy he’d read books about great military campaigns, and visited the museums and looked with patriotic pride at the paintings of famous cavalry charges, last stands and glorious victories. It had come as rather a shock, when he later began to participate in some of these, to find that the painters had unaccountably left out the intestines.
It’s a real soldiers’ song: sentimental, with dirty bits.
People said things like “quite possibly we shall never know the truth” which meant, in Vimes’s personal lexicon, “I know, or think I know what the truth is, and hope like hell it doesn’t come out, because things are all smoothed over now.”
He wanted to go home. He wanted it so much that he trembled at the thought. But if the price of that was selling good men to the night, if the price was filling those graves, if the price was not fighting with every trick he knew... then it was too high.
It was regrettable how many rulers of the city had been inhumed by the men in black because they didn’t recognize a chance when they saw it, didn’t know when they’d gone too far, didn’t read the signs, didn’t know when to walk away after embezzling a moderate and acceptable amount of cash. They didn’t realize it when the machine had stopped, when the world was ripe for change, when it was time, in fact, to spend more time with their family in case they ended up spending it with their ancestors.
Vetinari: “‘You know, it has often crossed my mind that those men deserve a proper memorial of some sort.”
Vimes: “Oh yes? In one of the main squares, perhaps?”
Vetinari: “Yes, that would be a good idea.”
Vimes: “Perhaps a tableau in bronze? All seven of them raising the flag, perhaps?”
Vetinari: “Bronze, yes.”
Vimes: “Really? And some sort of inspiring slogan?”
Vetinari: “Yes, indeed. Something like, perhaps, ‘They Did The Job They Had To Do’?”
Vimes: “No. How dare you? How dare you! At this time! In this place! They did the job they didn’t have to do, and they died doing it, and you can’t give them anything. Do you understand? They fought for those who’d been abandoned, they fought for one another, and they were betrayed. Men like them always are. What good would a statue be? It’d just inspire new fools to believe they’re going to be heroes. They wouldn’t want that. Just let them be. For ever.”
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
“You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty.”
One of “America’s Twenty Worst Agents” has struck again.
Our story so far: Barbara Bauer was listed as one of twenty agents and agencies who have been the subject of the most complaints to Writer Beware. Sure, it’s a popularity contest, but this one has meaning. If someone has prompted that many complaints without ever selling a book, she has presumably done a fair bit of damage to a large number of writers. Not a competition most agents would want to win.
These agents and agencies generally offer big promises, charge big up-front fees, and then deliver little or nothing. They're the spiritual heirs of the Famous Writers School so entertainingly skewered by the late Jessica Mitford (author of the quotation that titles this entry). These predators feed on innocent people who dream of being published and have no idea how to go about it.
Naturally, writers picked up this list from the SFWA website and disseminated it, and Barbara Bauer started sending huffy cease-and-desist letters. She also tried to get Teresa Nielsen Hayden fired from her job as editor at Tor Books on the grounds that Teresa had reposted the list and posted about Bauer’s threats of taking legal action.
All this just encouraged more people to post the list. Also to make fun of her; there’s nothing more amusing than someone claiming righteous indignation over their unveiling as someone of dubious reputation.
As of today, Barbara Bauer has gone from a laughable would-be bully to temporarily successful Internet censor. According to the highly respected Teresa Nielsen Hayden, a top-flight New York editor and fearless crusader for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, Barbara Bauer has gotten the Absolute Write website taken down. This site, described by one reviewer as absolutely a fantastic resource for writers! (exclamation point in original), had posted the Twenty Worst Agents list So Barbara Bauer complained to the ISP responsible for hosting the site, who took it down.
It should be up again within a day or so, but it’s still a shame that a wonderful resource for writers can be whisked away by empty threats of legal action.
Technorati tag:
BarbaraBauer
One of “America’s Twenty Worst Agents” has struck again.
Our story so far: Barbara Bauer was listed as one of twenty agents and agencies who have been the subject of the most complaints to Writer Beware. Sure, it’s a popularity contest, but this one has meaning. If someone has prompted that many complaints without ever selling a book, she has presumably done a fair bit of damage to a large number of writers. Not a competition most agents would want to win.
These agents and agencies generally offer big promises, charge big up-front fees, and then deliver little or nothing. They're the spiritual heirs of the Famous Writers School so entertainingly skewered by the late Jessica Mitford (author of the quotation that titles this entry). These predators feed on innocent people who dream of being published and have no idea how to go about it.
None of these agencies has a significant track record of sales to commercial (advance-paying) publishers, and most have virtually no documented and verified sales at all (book placements claimed by some of these agencies turn out to be "sales" to vanity publishers). All charge clients before a sale is made--whether directly, by levying fees such as reading or administrative fees, or indirectly, for editing or other adjunct services.
Naturally, writers picked up this list from the SFWA website and disseminated it, and Barbara Bauer started sending huffy cease-and-desist letters. She also tried to get Teresa Nielsen Hayden fired from her job as editor at Tor Books on the grounds that Teresa had reposted the list and posted about Bauer’s threats of taking legal action.
All this just encouraged more people to post the list. Also to make fun of her; there’s nothing more amusing than someone claiming righteous indignation over their unveiling as someone of dubious reputation.
As of today, Barbara Bauer has gone from a laughable would-be bully to temporarily successful Internet censor. According to the highly respected Teresa Nielsen Hayden, a top-flight New York editor and fearless crusader for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, Barbara Bauer has gotten the Absolute Write website taken down. This site, described by one reviewer as absolutely a fantastic resource for writers! (exclamation point in original), had posted the Twenty Worst Agents list So Barbara Bauer complained to the ISP responsible for hosting the site, who took it down.
It should be up again within a day or so, but it’s still a shame that a wonderful resource for writers can be whisked away by empty threats of legal action.
Technorati tag:
BarbaraBauer
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Travel Reservations
Dear New England:
I am sorry I am coming to visit, since you’re now getting the worst rains and flooding in seventy years. (Up to 17 inches of rain since last Friday? That’s impressive.) I had hoped Lynn’s Travel Curse was broken, since my last few trips east occurred without incident.
February 1993: My first visit to sunny southern California, where from 9 to 12 inches of rain fall in a couple of days and a mudslide closes Topanga Canyon 30 minutes after I drive through it. Debris flows and flooding are widespread, but not nearly so catastrophic as my appearance on Jeopardy!
Summer 1993: Disastrous floods inundate the Midwest when I attend the RWA Convention in St. Louis, a city even more humid than Philadelphia. While I am dressing for the awards banquet (where the table to which I am assigned turns out not to exist), I glance out the window and see a small tornado wandering down the street toward the river. According to NOAA, The 1993 midwest flood was one of the most significant and damaging natural disasters ever to hit the United States. Damages totaled $15 billion, 50 people died, hundreds of levees failed, and thousands of people were evacuated, some for months. The flood was unusual in the magnitude of the crests, the number of record crests, the large area impacted, and the length of the time the flood was an issue.
January 1996: A trip from Philadelphia to Albuquerque for a work conference is delayed by fog, lightning, rain, 60-mph winds, and freakishly warm temperatures that combine to melt the three feet of snow left by the great blizzard a few days before. My basement floods, my mother’s driveway is ripped out by torrents, and I arrive in Albuquerque 12 hours late to give my talk with the beginnings of laryngitis.
Christmas 2000: Arkansas suffers the worst natural disaster in its history when I come to spend Christmas with Michele’s family. Two inches of ice coated Little Rock and the surrounding areas. Half a million people were without power, many for more than a week. We were having Christmas dinner when we realized the ice storm was starting. Although we made abrave yet unbelievably stupid spirited attempt to drive back to the cabin where we were staying (where we had, of course, left our luggage, medicines, etc.), we were foiled by an inexperienced motorist who stopped driving halfway up a hill. We slid into a ditch and had to walk back a couple of miles through the freezing rain. Well, I say walk. We walked, fell, slid, skidded, and even rolled. Did I mention that none of us were really dressed for this activity? Or that there were three dogs, to which I am deathly allergic, at Michele’s father’s house? Or that his house was without electricity and therefore heat for the next several days? Or that, the airport closed for three days, delaying my flight home? Or that, when I did finally get home, I was flying into a huge Nor’easter that dumped large quantities of snow on my home state?
September 2001: I fly back to New York State to finish packing and moving to California. My original reservations to fly out of Logan Airport at 8AM on Tuesday, 9/11, are cancelled on the advice of my sensible older sister, who suggests I’ll need a few extra days in the east. (I don’t even need to link to this. If you do not know what happened that day, you can Google it.)
Perhaps now you see why I don’t travel much. But take heart, Massachusetts. By flooding now, you may be avoiding worse things later. Volcanoes, anyone?
Love,
Lynn
Dear New England:
I am sorry I am coming to visit, since you’re now getting the worst rains and flooding in seventy years. (Up to 17 inches of rain since last Friday? That’s impressive.) I had hoped Lynn’s Travel Curse was broken, since my last few trips east occurred without incident.
February 1993: My first visit to sunny southern California, where from 9 to 12 inches of rain fall in a couple of days and a mudslide closes Topanga Canyon 30 minutes after I drive through it. Debris flows and flooding are widespread, but not nearly so catastrophic as my appearance on Jeopardy!
Summer 1993: Disastrous floods inundate the Midwest when I attend the RWA Convention in St. Louis, a city even more humid than Philadelphia. While I am dressing for the awards banquet (where the table to which I am assigned turns out not to exist), I glance out the window and see a small tornado wandering down the street toward the river. According to NOAA, The 1993 midwest flood was one of the most significant and damaging natural disasters ever to hit the United States. Damages totaled $15 billion, 50 people died, hundreds of levees failed, and thousands of people were evacuated, some for months. The flood was unusual in the magnitude of the crests, the number of record crests, the large area impacted, and the length of the time the flood was an issue.
January 1996: A trip from Philadelphia to Albuquerque for a work conference is delayed by fog, lightning, rain, 60-mph winds, and freakishly warm temperatures that combine to melt the three feet of snow left by the great blizzard a few days before. My basement floods, my mother’s driveway is ripped out by torrents, and I arrive in Albuquerque 12 hours late to give my talk with the beginnings of laryngitis.
Christmas 2000: Arkansas suffers the worst natural disaster in its history when I come to spend Christmas with Michele’s family. Two inches of ice coated Little Rock and the surrounding areas. Half a million people were without power, many for more than a week. We were having Christmas dinner when we realized the ice storm was starting. Although we made a
September 2001: I fly back to New York State to finish packing and moving to California. My original reservations to fly out of Logan Airport at 8AM on Tuesday, 9/11, are cancelled on the advice of my sensible older sister, who suggests I’ll need a few extra days in the east. (I don’t even need to link to this. If you do not know what happened that day, you can Google it.)
Perhaps now you see why I don’t travel much. But take heart, Massachusetts. By flooding now, you may be avoiding worse things later. Volcanoes, anyone?
Love,
Lynn
Monday, May 01, 2006
Bring Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses
My recent book research has taken me back into the familiar and beloved culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century New England: day-long Sunday services and annual town meetings, schooners and clipper ships, towering elms and lilac bushes, and prim Federal houses with their fanlights and balanced facades. The combination of thrift, sobriety, hard work, personal modesty, and reverence for learning sounds austere, but there was also great joy and fun. I was especially tickled by the young ship’s captain who sometimes kept his logbook in verse.
These are my ancestors, and I love them. They went on to envision an ideal of democracy and equality that became a beacon to a world where education, justice, and opportunity had been the privilege of the wealthy and the well-connected. They founded a nation and a constitution that, despite flaws and bigotry, nevertheless became a model to the world.
They were also illegal immigrants. Not only that, they were illegal immigrants who were ignorant of the local language, in dire need of welfare services, and unable to survive without the support and help of the people who were there first. They destroyed the local economy, too. They even spread disease—sometimes by accident, on a few shameful occasions on purpose. Any of these accusations sound familiar?
Think about it: The Pequot Indians, rightful residents of the invaded territories, didn't want them in the first place and did their damnedest to eliminate the pesky immigrants, once they realized how destructive the invasion would be. The Pequots had to give food and job training to the helpless Pilgrims, who would have starved without that social support. Within a generation, the Pequot way of life was smashed.
That’s the other side of New England: the genocide against the natives who so kindly fed the starving Pilgrims and patiently taught the first white settlers how to plant and fertilize corn; the triangular trade in rum/molasses/slaves; the murderous religious persecutions and literal witch hunts where anyone who seemed different was sought out and destroyed; and the relentless, unquestioning self-righteousness that may be their worst legacy to the United States of 2006.
So which side are we on? Do we choose the idealism of the young colonies, the willingness to let everyone regardless of birth have a chance to work their own way with their own two hands? Or do we side with the prejudice and contempt that values inherited wealth and despises some people as three-fifths of a human being? I see our country, where my family has lived for four centuries, becoming more and more divided into the wealthy and the oppressed, where the rich exploit the workers with impunity and where government and corporations join forces to drain cash from the pockets of the hard-working majority.
What immigrants, legal or illegal, ask for is a chance to make a better life for themselves and their children. Like native-born American citizens, they need work, dignity, a chance at an education, and a little help adjusting. The pennies we spend on them will be repaid a millionfold by hard-working, loyal people. Unlike the vast sums we disburse to Halliburton and Enron, where billions sink without a trace into the pockets of corrupt and powerful rich men.
Maybe we need an infusion of people who still remember the ideals of America. Our current Administration certainly does not. Crowning a lifetime of incompetence cushioned by wealth and privilege, George W. Bush is now bent on gutting the Constitution he swore to uphold by claiming the president does not need to obey the laws. Who is the greater threat to the peace and security of the United States: a hard-working illegal immigrant picking lettuce to make ends meet, or a loose-cannon rich boy in the Oval Office with delusions that God put him there to enrich the wealthy, torture prisoners, trash the checks and balances of the three branches of government, and invade foreign countries?
I know which one scares me.
My recent book research has taken me back into the familiar and beloved culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century New England: day-long Sunday services and annual town meetings, schooners and clipper ships, towering elms and lilac bushes, and prim Federal houses with their fanlights and balanced facades. The combination of thrift, sobriety, hard work, personal modesty, and reverence for learning sounds austere, but there was also great joy and fun. I was especially tickled by the young ship’s captain who sometimes kept his logbook in verse.
These are my ancestors, and I love them. They went on to envision an ideal of democracy and equality that became a beacon to a world where education, justice, and opportunity had been the privilege of the wealthy and the well-connected. They founded a nation and a constitution that, despite flaws and bigotry, nevertheless became a model to the world.
They were also illegal immigrants. Not only that, they were illegal immigrants who were ignorant of the local language, in dire need of welfare services, and unable to survive without the support and help of the people who were there first. They destroyed the local economy, too. They even spread disease—sometimes by accident, on a few shameful occasions on purpose. Any of these accusations sound familiar?
Think about it: The Pequot Indians, rightful residents of the invaded territories, didn't want them in the first place and did their damnedest to eliminate the pesky immigrants, once they realized how destructive the invasion would be. The Pequots had to give food and job training to the helpless Pilgrims, who would have starved without that social support. Within a generation, the Pequot way of life was smashed.
That’s the other side of New England: the genocide against the natives who so kindly fed the starving Pilgrims and patiently taught the first white settlers how to plant and fertilize corn; the triangular trade in rum/molasses/slaves; the murderous religious persecutions and literal witch hunts where anyone who seemed different was sought out and destroyed; and the relentless, unquestioning self-righteousness that may be their worst legacy to the United States of 2006.
So which side are we on? Do we choose the idealism of the young colonies, the willingness to let everyone regardless of birth have a chance to work their own way with their own two hands? Or do we side with the prejudice and contempt that values inherited wealth and despises some people as three-fifths of a human being? I see our country, where my family has lived for four centuries, becoming more and more divided into the wealthy and the oppressed, where the rich exploit the workers with impunity and where government and corporations join forces to drain cash from the pockets of the hard-working majority.
What immigrants, legal or illegal, ask for is a chance to make a better life for themselves and their children. Like native-born American citizens, they need work, dignity, a chance at an education, and a little help adjusting. The pennies we spend on them will be repaid a millionfold by hard-working, loyal people. Unlike the vast sums we disburse to Halliburton and Enron, where billions sink without a trace into the pockets of corrupt and powerful rich men.
Maybe we need an infusion of people who still remember the ideals of America. Our current Administration certainly does not. Crowning a lifetime of incompetence cushioned by wealth and privilege, George W. Bush is now bent on gutting the Constitution he swore to uphold by claiming the president does not need to obey the laws. Who is the greater threat to the peace and security of the United States: a hard-working illegal immigrant picking lettuce to make ends meet, or a loose-cannon rich boy in the Oval Office with delusions that God put him there to enrich the wealthy, torture prisoners, trash the checks and balances of the three branches of government, and invade foreign countries?
I know which one scares me.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
The Easter Quake
The foreshock came at 5:12 AM on Easter Sunday. About 25 seconds later, the full earthquake struck. The rumbling and shaking lasted 45 seconds to a minute. Immense forces ripped the landscape apart; in some places the ground moved as much as 20 feet.
No, this didn’t happen two days ago. It happened one hundred years ago today, and for the past three weeks, Bay Area residents have been enjoying saturation coverage of the centennial of the Great Quake that struck at 5:12 AM April 18, 1906, and devastated the city. Curators, cartographers, even choreographers have all paid tribute. A dozen or so survivors of the quake have been repeatedly interviewed, and they’re an astonishing bunch: quick-witted, energetic, and feisty. Some are still working.
You can watch the quake propagate—the viewpoint is from the west, showing how the central rupture spread north and south along the San Andreas. You can look at pictures of San Francisco then and now. And Tim Walton, an experienced news cameraman for NBC, points out that the quake signaled the beginning of citizen photojournalism. (He and his wife Kathy, a sound tech who often works with him, are friends of mine. Together, they've covered everything from Columbine to the Michael Jackson trial; Tim has also spent several tours in Iraq while Kathy stayed home with their children.)
The USGS, probably my all-time favorite government agency, offers a stunning exhibit on the quake, with photographs of the devastation, plus maps, and clear discussions of the science of the earthquake.
There’s an irony to this; many of the earthquake survivors fled to the perceived safety of the East Bay, which is where the next big threat is located. There’s a 27% chance of a magnitude 6.7 or larger quake on the Hayward by 2032. (There was a quake of that magnitude here in 1868; the ground moved three feet in some places.) You can see evidence that the fault is constantly moving.
Today it’s slowly creeping. Someday it will rupture, devastating the East Bay from San Pablo through Oakland and south to Fremont. Throughout the fault zone, the coastal plains near the bay are densely populated with homes and businesses, but in some places the hills are still grazing land for cattle. In other places, the hills are occupied by beautiful houses and at least one great university. Yes, Berkeley is on the Hayward fault. In fact, the fault runs between the goalposts of Berkeley’s football field. The East Bay is a ticking time bomb.
It’s also where I live.
Every single day I drive along the Hayward fault; it runs under Mission Street, which in my area is a strip of car dealerships, body shops, and transmission-repair places. I admit to slowing down whenever I pass the local expert on British luxury vehicles: I have to check out the classic 1930s Rolls-Royces, the Bentleys, and the Jaguar convertibles that are parked there, awaiting service. When the Hayward fault breaks, I hope it’s on a weekend, when those lovely cars are not directly in the line of destruction.
My workplace is constructed to withstand almost any quake, so despite its proximity to the fault I never worry about one when I’m here. We also have earthquake supplies: not just the usual ones mandated by law, but long-term survival supplies, because part of our job is disaster recovery.
My house is on bedrock, which should minimize shaking, and it’s at the peak of a hill with panoramic views. (On clear days we can see San Francisco and the Marin headlands beyond, plus the Bay and the Santa Cruz mountains on the other side) Specifically, it’s on the fault escarpment, the bluff that rose through the millennia as the Hayward fault broke and broke again. Yes, that’s right: I live perched like a ski-jumper above the most dangerous active local fault. Should it rupture again soon, I’ll have a front-row view of the devastation.
We who live on the fault are not helpless. Coming from a less seismically aware region of the country, I was astonished when I heard Californians matter-of-factly discussing the quake preparations they’d made. (Bolting bookcases to the wall, for example, or making sure the bed is not in falling distance of anything potentially lethal.)It’s possible to quakeproof your home. This won’t actually prevent any earthquakes, or even prevent your house from total destruction if the rupture happens in your front yard, but it’s useful advice. You can also learn to check for danger in a house you buy or rent.
Why stay? I was talking with Michele this morning. She pointed out, quite correctly, that the people who had fled the East Bay were jumping from the frying pan into the fire. “Didn’t anybody remember the 1868 quake?”
“That had been almost 40 years before, when there were a lot fewer people. Many people were new immigrants who didn’t know.”
“If I were looking for someplace safe, I’d have gone to South Dakota.”
“Where you have blizzards, tornadoes, heat waves, and droughts. And the Eastern seaboard is no better. There have been huge quakes in Boston and Charleston, and the Hudson River is on a fault. Someday New York City will get hit hard.”
She said, “I know—that’s why I picked South Dakota.”
“Why not Wyoming? There the biggest risk is that you’ll be beaten, set on fire, and tied to a fence to die.”
And that is one reason people stay here. It’s not just the spectacular climate. It sure as hell isn’t the real estate prices. Here at the edge of the continent, geeks and queers—both terms that have been reclaimed with pride—live in peace with people who would be average in Peoria. They’re used to us. We’re safe—as safe as we can ever be, anywhere.
So today, I celebrate the spirit of a city that survived the destruction of more than half its buildings. I celebrate the drive to rebuild more intelligently; every disaster has taught us more about how to live with our faults. I celebrate the San Francisco Bay Area. My home.
The foreshock came at 5:12 AM on Easter Sunday. About 25 seconds later, the full earthquake struck. The rumbling and shaking lasted 45 seconds to a minute. Immense forces ripped the landscape apart; in some places the ground moved as much as 20 feet.
No, this didn’t happen two days ago. It happened one hundred years ago today, and for the past three weeks, Bay Area residents have been enjoying saturation coverage of the centennial of the Great Quake that struck at 5:12 AM April 18, 1906, and devastated the city. Curators, cartographers, even choreographers have all paid tribute. A dozen or so survivors of the quake have been repeatedly interviewed, and they’re an astonishing bunch: quick-witted, energetic, and feisty. Some are still working.
You can watch the quake propagate—the viewpoint is from the west, showing how the central rupture spread north and south along the San Andreas. You can look at pictures of San Francisco then and now. And Tim Walton, an experienced news cameraman for NBC, points out that the quake signaled the beginning of citizen photojournalism. (He and his wife Kathy, a sound tech who often works with him, are friends of mine. Together, they've covered everything from Columbine to the Michael Jackson trial; Tim has also spent several tours in Iraq while Kathy stayed home with their children.)
The USGS, probably my all-time favorite government agency, offers a stunning exhibit on the quake, with photographs of the devastation, plus maps, and clear discussions of the science of the earthquake.
The real threat to the San Francisco Bay region over the next 30 years comes not from a 1906-type earthquake, but from smaller (magnitude about 7) earthquakes occurring on the Hayward fault, the Peninsula segment of the San Andreas fault, or the Rodgers Creek fault.
There’s an irony to this; many of the earthquake survivors fled to the perceived safety of the East Bay, which is where the next big threat is located. There’s a 27% chance of a magnitude 6.7 or larger quake on the Hayward by 2032. (There was a quake of that magnitude here in 1868; the ground moved three feet in some places.) You can see evidence that the fault is constantly moving.
Today it’s slowly creeping. Someday it will rupture, devastating the East Bay from San Pablo through Oakland and south to Fremont. Throughout the fault zone, the coastal plains near the bay are densely populated with homes and businesses, but in some places the hills are still grazing land for cattle. In other places, the hills are occupied by beautiful houses and at least one great university. Yes, Berkeley is on the Hayward fault. In fact, the fault runs between the goalposts of Berkeley’s football field. The East Bay is a ticking time bomb.
It’s also where I live.
Every single day I drive along the Hayward fault; it runs under Mission Street, which in my area is a strip of car dealerships, body shops, and transmission-repair places. I admit to slowing down whenever I pass the local expert on British luxury vehicles: I have to check out the classic 1930s Rolls-Royces, the Bentleys, and the Jaguar convertibles that are parked there, awaiting service. When the Hayward fault breaks, I hope it’s on a weekend, when those lovely cars are not directly in the line of destruction.
My workplace is constructed to withstand almost any quake, so despite its proximity to the fault I never worry about one when I’m here. We also have earthquake supplies: not just the usual ones mandated by law, but long-term survival supplies, because part of our job is disaster recovery.
My house is on bedrock, which should minimize shaking, and it’s at the peak of a hill with panoramic views. (On clear days we can see San Francisco and the Marin headlands beyond, plus the Bay and the Santa Cruz mountains on the other side) Specifically, it’s on the fault escarpment, the bluff that rose through the millennia as the Hayward fault broke and broke again. Yes, that’s right: I live perched like a ski-jumper above the most dangerous active local fault. Should it rupture again soon, I’ll have a front-row view of the devastation.
We who live on the fault are not helpless. Coming from a less seismically aware region of the country, I was astonished when I heard Californians matter-of-factly discussing the quake preparations they’d made. (Bolting bookcases to the wall, for example, or making sure the bed is not in falling distance of anything potentially lethal.)It’s possible to quakeproof your home. This won’t actually prevent any earthquakes, or even prevent your house from total destruction if the rupture happens in your front yard, but it’s useful advice. You can also learn to check for danger in a house you buy or rent.
Why stay? I was talking with Michele this morning. She pointed out, quite correctly, that the people who had fled the East Bay were jumping from the frying pan into the fire. “Didn’t anybody remember the 1868 quake?”
“That had been almost 40 years before, when there were a lot fewer people. Many people were new immigrants who didn’t know.”
“If I were looking for someplace safe, I’d have gone to South Dakota.”
“Where you have blizzards, tornadoes, heat waves, and droughts. And the Eastern seaboard is no better. There have been huge quakes in Boston and Charleston, and the Hudson River is on a fault. Someday New York City will get hit hard.”
She said, “I know—that’s why I picked South Dakota.”
“Why not Wyoming? There the biggest risk is that you’ll be beaten, set on fire, and tied to a fence to die.”
And that is one reason people stay here. It’s not just the spectacular climate. It sure as hell isn’t the real estate prices. Here at the edge of the continent, geeks and queers—both terms that have been reclaimed with pride—live in peace with people who would be average in Peoria. They’re used to us. We’re safe—as safe as we can ever be, anywhere.
So today, I celebrate the spirit of a city that survived the destruction of more than half its buildings. I celebrate the drive to rebuild more intelligently; every disaster has taught us more about how to live with our faults. I celebrate the San Francisco Bay Area. My home.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
“I'm Not Saying We Wouldn't Get Our Hair Mussed”
Recent snatch of telephone dialogue:
Lynn: You know why Bush wants to nuke Iran? Because he thinks saving Iran will be his legacy.
Alan: What, bankrupting the country and destroying our military isn’t enough?
Lynn: Not to mention pissing off the whole world. He’s managed to make everyone hate us.
If you would prefer that we not nuke Iran, MoveOn has an online petition. You can add your own notes to your Congresscritter. This is what I had to say:
To quote General Buck Turgidson: “Perhaps it might be better, Mr. President, if you were more concerned with the American people, than with your image in the history books.”
Recent snatch of telephone dialogue:
Lynn: You know why Bush wants to nuke Iran? Because he thinks saving Iran will be his legacy.
Alan: What, bankrupting the country and destroying our military isn’t enough?
Lynn: Not to mention pissing off the whole world. He’s managed to make everyone hate us.
If you would prefer that we not nuke Iran, MoveOn has an online petition. You can add your own notes to your Congresscritter. This is what I had to say:
This administration's idea of how to win friends and influence people is straight from the schoolyard bully, who resolves every dispute and assuages every frustration by beating up a smaller, weaker kid. The small-scale bully bloodies noses and makes a few kids' lives wretched, which is bad enough; bullying can leave scars for life.
Now extrapolate that effect to whole nations. Imagine the agonizing scars, physical and emotional, generations of Iranians would suffer if the United States, flaunting the flag of democracy, pre-emptively attacked them with nuclear weapons. Imagine the level of hatred and desperation they would feel. When people have nothing to lose and Paradise to gain, becoming a suicide bomber makes sense. Using a nuclear strike against Iran would make life in the US far more dangerous.
If you want to protect American lives, make Iran a friendly nation. Helping their economy and giving their young people hope for a better life on earth is likely to be a far more successful tactic than mass murder. Compare Germany after the Versailles treaty with Germany under the Marshall Plan. Which group was being punished by the international community? Which group lashed out at their own minorities and the rest of the world? Which group was peaceful, prosperous, free, and democratic?
We have become a rogue state under the leadership of an irresponsible president. Use your Congressional powers while you still have them. Now if ever is the time for checks and balances to halt the excesses of the loose-cannon executive branch. The Bush Administration is gutting the Constitution at home and promoting the Apocalypse abroad. Stop President Bush--or bear the guilt of thousands of deaths, now and in the future. Stop this bombing--and be proud to be an American again.
To quote General Buck Turgidson: “Perhaps it might be better, Mr. President, if you were more concerned with the American people, than with your image in the history books.”
Friday, April 07, 2006
Books that Built My World
Some people are raised by wolves. I was raised by books. This list of essential books is incomplete, of course, but it's a good start; it goes up to about 1980. I’ve chosen books that were turning points—that led me into new worlds, clarified or altered my vision, changed the ways I thought and wrote, or spoke for me when I could not yet find my own words. Not just books I loved; you’ll find no Faulkner here, for example, nor Willa Cather.
The King James Bible. In the beginning was the KJV. I learned to read from it. No book has shaped me more profoundly than that one. I know all the arguments against it, scholarly and otherwise. But still my sense of the Divine is shaped by the stubborn grandeur and simplicity of its language.
Geography, a Little Golden Book. Call it 1963; I was 3 or 4. My mother bought me this 29-cent book at the grocery store. Its picture of an erupting volcano sparked my lifelong interest in geology.
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott. When I was about 6, my mother gave me this book, saying, “This is a book about four little girls just like you and your sisters.” (Yes, I was the second of the four, and I already wanted to be a writer.) It’s also both truthful and well-written. I can still see traces of Louisa in my writing style.
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte. That pale, plain girl’s resolute integrity through abuse, hunger, and temptation was an early model for me. And her passion—her avowal of love to Rochester, her courage, her strong feelings for nature and other people—oh, these were an example and a role-model for me.
Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis. My sister Lisa gave it to me for my seventh birthday. The first Lewis I ever read, and the direct link to my reading such formative books as The Screwtape Letters, which is one of the great structural books of my life.
Poems for Young People, Edna St. Vincent Millay. A gift from my mother when I was about ten. Started my lifelong interest in Millay.
Modern British and American Poetry, ed. Louis Untermeyer. I found this book, scrounging around in the attic of a house we rented. I still have it. It opened so many doors for me. So many names—Pound, Graves, Sassoon, Chesterton—became familiar to me from that anthology, and when I saw them elsewhere I pounced on them.
Ammie, Come Home, Barbara Michaels. First read around Easter of 1968 at my paternal grandparents’ house in Chevy Chase, not far from where the book is set. They had the Reader’s Digest condensed version. (Most of the condensing was done by eliminating profanity.) This elegant, terrifying ghost story expressed one facet of the pain I was going through.
Moreover, the book introduced me to Barbara Michaels, who in turn sent me on to read Dorothy L. Sayers and Josephine Tey. I was and am deeply grateful that she referenced other books. So much of my reading was random; I chose books that looked interesting or authors mentioned by someone else I liked. I didn't have anyone to help me choose my reading. I scrambled and scrounged and searched for connections. Was there anybody else like me out there? Maybe the next book would hold a clue.
Collected Poems, Dylan Thomas. I picked this up in my school library in the spring of 1972. I drank it straight, and the effect was very much like chugging a bottle of straight whiskey.
The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden. A book of essays I discovered in my school library when I was 13 or so. Auden was as passionately, playfully addicted to categorization as I am, and I still enjoy his lucid perceptions on poetry, society, psychology.
“When It Changed,” Joanna Russ, in Again, Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison. In the summer of 1973, I was about to turn 14 and about to get braces. After a preliminary examination at my orthodontist’s office in Scranton, I went across the street to a combination gun/junk store, which had a few books for sale on a back shelf. I’ve told the story in this space before—how I found the anthology and knelt there to read the whole story, tears pouring down my face. The book cost a quarter; I still have it. From then on, I read anything I could find by Joanna Russ; The Female Man in particular became a touchstone, a book I reread, annotated, quoted, absorbed—a book that structured my thinking.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. I didn’t read Austen until I was 16, and then I realized that being a great writer required only that you see clearly and speak honestly. I’m still working on them both.
The Great Shark Hunt, Hunter Thompson. Probably in my sophomore year of college (1977), I was taking the Greyhound back from visiting my family. The bus was crowded that day, and we got stuck behind two funerals and a wedding. But my seatmate was a Penn student reading this, and he kept laughing aloud—and soon he was reading bits of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” out loud to me. I loved—and love—Thompson’s outrage, his politics, his crazily inflated language rigorously tied to precise, telling detail.
Small Changes, Marge Piercy. Look, people who were living the way I was living! These days I grow easily frustrated with Piercy, who can be mean-spirited and predictable, but in 1979 there weren’t many books that reflected my kind of life.
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen. She spoke of grief and exile when I was new to them both. I still reread this book in times of loss, and her short stories are always a delight to me. I marvel at the clarity of her prose.
Malafrena, Ursula K. Le Guin. I’d read Earthsea and felt cheated; the writing was good, but the world felt sexist to me. Somehow Malafrena worked for me, bringing together my lifelong fascinations with revolutions and with Eastern Europe (an unsurprising one, given where I grew up). I confess I fell in love with Itale Sorde. I went on to read all the rest of Le Guin, to find great power in her work, and to marry someone of Eastern European extraction, partly because he reminded me of Itale.
Some people are raised by wolves. I was raised by books. This list of essential books is incomplete, of course, but it's a good start; it goes up to about 1980. I’ve chosen books that were turning points—that led me into new worlds, clarified or altered my vision, changed the ways I thought and wrote, or spoke for me when I could not yet find my own words. Not just books I loved; you’ll find no Faulkner here, for example, nor Willa Cather.
The King James Bible. In the beginning was the KJV. I learned to read from it. No book has shaped me more profoundly than that one. I know all the arguments against it, scholarly and otherwise. But still my sense of the Divine is shaped by the stubborn grandeur and simplicity of its language.
Geography, a Little Golden Book. Call it 1963; I was 3 or 4. My mother bought me this 29-cent book at the grocery store. Its picture of an erupting volcano sparked my lifelong interest in geology.
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott. When I was about 6, my mother gave me this book, saying, “This is a book about four little girls just like you and your sisters.” (Yes, I was the second of the four, and I already wanted to be a writer.) It’s also both truthful and well-written. I can still see traces of Louisa in my writing style.
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte. That pale, plain girl’s resolute integrity through abuse, hunger, and temptation was an early model for me. And her passion—her avowal of love to Rochester, her courage, her strong feelings for nature and other people—oh, these were an example and a role-model for me.
Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis. My sister Lisa gave it to me for my seventh birthday. The first Lewis I ever read, and the direct link to my reading such formative books as The Screwtape Letters, which is one of the great structural books of my life.
Poems for Young People, Edna St. Vincent Millay. A gift from my mother when I was about ten. Started my lifelong interest in Millay.
Modern British and American Poetry, ed. Louis Untermeyer. I found this book, scrounging around in the attic of a house we rented. I still have it. It opened so many doors for me. So many names—Pound, Graves, Sassoon, Chesterton—became familiar to me from that anthology, and when I saw them elsewhere I pounced on them.
Ammie, Come Home, Barbara Michaels. First read around Easter of 1968 at my paternal grandparents’ house in Chevy Chase, not far from where the book is set. They had the Reader’s Digest condensed version. (Most of the condensing was done by eliminating profanity.) This elegant, terrifying ghost story expressed one facet of the pain I was going through.
Moreover, the book introduced me to Barbara Michaels, who in turn sent me on to read Dorothy L. Sayers and Josephine Tey. I was and am deeply grateful that she referenced other books. So much of my reading was random; I chose books that looked interesting or authors mentioned by someone else I liked. I didn't have anyone to help me choose my reading. I scrambled and scrounged and searched for connections. Was there anybody else like me out there? Maybe the next book would hold a clue.
Collected Poems, Dylan Thomas. I picked this up in my school library in the spring of 1972. I drank it straight, and the effect was very much like chugging a bottle of straight whiskey.
The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden. A book of essays I discovered in my school library when I was 13 or so. Auden was as passionately, playfully addicted to categorization as I am, and I still enjoy his lucid perceptions on poetry, society, psychology.
“When It Changed,” Joanna Russ, in Again, Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison. In the summer of 1973, I was about to turn 14 and about to get braces. After a preliminary examination at my orthodontist’s office in Scranton, I went across the street to a combination gun/junk store, which had a few books for sale on a back shelf. I’ve told the story in this space before—how I found the anthology and knelt there to read the whole story, tears pouring down my face. The book cost a quarter; I still have it. From then on, I read anything I could find by Joanna Russ; The Female Man in particular became a touchstone, a book I reread, annotated, quoted, absorbed—a book that structured my thinking.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. I didn’t read Austen until I was 16, and then I realized that being a great writer required only that you see clearly and speak honestly. I’m still working on them both.
The Great Shark Hunt, Hunter Thompson. Probably in my sophomore year of college (1977), I was taking the Greyhound back from visiting my family. The bus was crowded that day, and we got stuck behind two funerals and a wedding. But my seatmate was a Penn student reading this, and he kept laughing aloud—and soon he was reading bits of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” out loud to me. I loved—and love—Thompson’s outrage, his politics, his crazily inflated language rigorously tied to precise, telling detail.
Small Changes, Marge Piercy. Look, people who were living the way I was living! These days I grow easily frustrated with Piercy, who can be mean-spirited and predictable, but in 1979 there weren’t many books that reflected my kind of life.
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen. She spoke of grief and exile when I was new to them both. I still reread this book in times of loss, and her short stories are always a delight to me. I marvel at the clarity of her prose.
Malafrena, Ursula K. Le Guin. I’d read Earthsea and felt cheated; the writing was good, but the world felt sexist to me. Somehow Malafrena worked for me, bringing together my lifelong fascinations with revolutions and with Eastern Europe (an unsurprising one, given where I grew up). I confess I fell in love with Itale Sorde. I went on to read all the rest of Le Guin, to find great power in her work, and to marry someone of Eastern European extraction, partly because he reminded me of Itale.
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