JOURNAL ENTRY #21

July 1, 2008

The Advanced Reading Copy of the 'best of' collection, Cryptic, showed up yesterday. It weighs in at 585 pages, easily the heftiest book I've been associated with. An Advanced Reading Copy (or ARC), by the way, is an uncorrected proof. It looks like a trade paper edition, and will be distributed to reviewers and book sellers. The book contains an introduction by Rob Sawyer. (I had the opportunity to read Rob's newest effort, Wake. It's another novel that should do well in the awards.)

I've been enjoying myself over the last few weeks reading Kaufmann & Hart plays. I finally got to The Man Who Came to Dinner this weekend. Mike Bishop had warned me in advance that it was hilarious. I'd seen it performed thirty years ago and had forgotten just how good it is. It's one of the few laugh-out-loud things I've come across recently.

Marietta Publishing has announced that its military SF anthology, Breach the Hull, is among three finalists for the eighth annual DreamRealm Awards. The book has qualified in two categories: cover art, and best anthology. Mike McPhail served as both editor and artist. Writers include John C. Wright, Bud Sparhawk, John Hemry, and C. J. Henderson. I'm in it, too. It's the only time I've ever made two contributions to a single anthology: "Cryptic," and "Black to Move."

I've been trying to put my library in order recently, and, as invariably happens, have discovered books that I've never gotten around to reading, but should have. One of the discoveries was Joseph Campbell's four-volume The Masks of God. I first became aware of Campbell thirty years ago. I read some of his work, and we had planned to listen to him speak when we were living in Chicago in the mid-eighties. But something came up, and we thought, well, we'll get him next time. Unfortunately the next time never came. We moved to Georgia, and Campbell passed away, leaving a brilliant legacy.

The Masks of God is an effort to track the development of religion, mythology, and aspiration from the primitive to the present. Lots of intriguing stuff. E.g., descriptions of myths about serpents, the world tree, and paradisical gardens long predating Genesis. Sometimes, it turns out, the serpent was representative of supernatural forces that helped humans when they came to the tree, granting them immortality and knowledge. Campbell mentions that the serpent, in many cultures, came to represent immortality because of its skin-shedding tendencies.

The big news story yesterday (July 14) was The New Yorker cover depicting the Obamas as terrorists. I have mixed feelings about it. The cover will be used by right wing types to support their charges that Obama has connections to Islamic bomb-throwers. But it's a clever cover. Should The New Yorker have to dumb things down because a cartoon might have a negative effect on idiots?

We're using a term this election season that I haven't heard before: Low information voters. Translation: Morons who show up at polling places. For years we've been encouraging everyone to get out and vote. I've never understood why. If someone has paid no attention to what is going on in the country and the world for the last four, or eight, years, I'd argue that they do everyone --except political spinners-- a favor and stay home. As to selecting presidents, I'd like to see us get away from all the talk about who's experienced, and what a candidate's religious opinions are, and start by getting the measure of his/her IQ. Maybe we could challenge the candidates to allow themselves to be connected to a lie detector while they field questions from a town hall audience.

Jack

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