Jeff Vandermeer and the Next Novel

Jeff Vandermeer did one of his rare posts on Facebook.  I took this opportunity to tell him that "I was ready for the next novel, please".  And he replied "Soon, Michael, soon".  A small ray of hope in another wise dismal and self-destructive world.

Area X Closed Due to Government Shutdown

Area X is closed due to the government shutdown.

Actually, it isnt, but the park that Area X is based on is.  Jeff Vandermeer, the author of the Southern Reach trilogy is publicizing a "go fund me" to reopen the park during the shutdown.  You can read about this here:

https://observer.com/2019/01/jeff-vandermeer-government-shutdown-annihilation-area-x/

The author goes on to observe:

“I believe to some extent Trump wants this chaos, because, and I don’t know if it’s even necessarily him that’s the most rigidly ideological about this, but I do believe there are people in his administration pushing to destroy parts of government because they believe those parts should not actually exist… This hurts everyone’s quality of life. It’s actually imperative for our own survival with climate change that we keep as much natural space as possible. It’s literally a no brainer in terms of carbon dioxide and also with regard to having clean water and everything else. There’s a fundamental dysfunction with this administration where they either don’t care because they don’t have to suffer the consequences or they literally don’t understand how the world works.”

"The Grinnell Method" by Molly Gloss

draft

All I know about this story is that Molly Gloss wrote it, that it was published on Strange Horizons, and that Jeff VanderMeer recommends it. It has a feel of The Southern Reach to it.

This is one of those essentially perfect short stories that we all wish that we could or would write.

An excerpt from The Grinnell Method

From the edge of the marsh, she could hear a dog howling, a terrible prolonged wailing of pain or fear, and when she came out on the mud flats a wet black dog was pacing back and forth, lifting its muzzle every little while in a long, loud, doleful cry of anguish. She called to it without coming very near—she knew nothing of dogs, and thought this one might be rabid. The dog went on pacing and crying, looking out across the bay where an oyster boat rolled and heaved on the swell. Several men on the deck of the boat appeared to be casting and retrieving a drag net without recovering anything. The water was too choppy to see what it was they cast for—a man overboard, she feared, and then realized he must already have drowned—that they were casting for a body—or their efforts would have had more urgency. This was not something she could think about for long.

While she stood watching they brought up something heavy and dark, something like a waterlogged stump. The oystermen had seen her watching from the bay shore, and when they had the thing aboard they hoisted it up and displayed it for her, lifting and spreading the arms wide, lifting up the heavy head until the mouth fell open to white teeth, a red tongue. The bear's thick, sodden pelt streamed with salt water. The dog pointed his nose at the sky and suddenly raised a new wail—it seemed to her a sound of terrible bereavement. One of the men on the boat shouted something, but she could not make it out against the chop of waves on the muddy shore.

The "Oyster Catcher" plays a supporting role in this story

The Grinnell Method by Molly Gloss

Part 1

http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/the-grinnell-method-part-1-of-2/

Part 2

http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/the-grinnell-method-part-2-of-2/


The web site of Molly Gloss can be found at http://mollygloss.com/

Molly Gloss signing a book

Hollywood and Natalie Portman Demonstrate Commitment to Fundamental Values

Whenever we see a threatened community in this chaotic world stand fast and united in support of fundamental values I think it is important to celebrate the event. So many of our friends and institutions have thrown away everything that they used to stand for in order to make a fast buck.

Hollywood is not normally considered a shining pillar of integrity but I believe that is a misunderstanding on the part of outsiders.  Hollywood as a loosely-defined creative community has always had and continues to have a set of core values that are shared across the community and evolves with time.  These values have survived mergers and acquisitions,  new distribution technologies, government antitrust lawsuits, drought, war and pestilence. One of these core values is that there is always money to be made by the cheesy exploitation of women. Let us review a particularly creative use of this principle.

A few years ago, a well-known author of "weird fiction", Jeff VanderMeer, published three novels in a series called the "Southern Reach".  The first of those books, Annihilation, was optioned by Scott Rudin to turn into a movie. He hired the director of Ex Machina (2015), Alex Garland, to write the adaptation and direct the film. The book (and presumably the film) is unusual in many ways and one way that is important to us is that all the protagonists are women. The movie is the story of an expedition of scientists to an area where a strange event occurred many years ago that has cut this area off from the rest of the country.  There have been previous expeditions and they did not end well. So what we have here is a film where the four main characters are all strong and interesting women. The movie stars Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Tessa Thompson. The book is told from the point of view of one of the members of the expedition, the Biologist, played by Natalie Portman.

Nice posture, Natalie! 

As you know, Hollywood has often been accused of perpetuating demeaning stereotypes of women, and failing to provide serious roles for actresses who want to get their next academy award nomination.  So this movie provides an excellent opportunity to refute this sadly somewhat valid criticism of Hollywood.

This film, Annihilation (2017), has finished principal photography and still has a long way to go before it is released but Hollywood realizes it is never too early to start marketing a film. One time-honored way to do this is with interviews by various news media of the star(s) of the film.  And since the film is about four intelligent and adventurous women, it would make sense if that marketing also communicated some of these ideas.

And so an article/interview was created and placed in the New York Times Style Magazine.  It is an interview by email (that social media hook!)  with Natalie Portman by a writer in which they discuss the first short film that Natalie has directed.  They discuss many topics including Natalie's upbringing in Israel, the work of various eclectic authors of fiction, and so forth..

Now we get to the heartwarming, even inspirational, part of our story.  Ms. Portman discusses her movie and her childhood in very intelligent ways, certainly combating the stereotype of women in Hollywood. But I had not realized how financially challenged Ms. Portman was. You see, not everyone in Hollywood makes those multi-million dollar salaries.  Apparently, Ms Portman was or is so poor that she did not own any pants. Nevertheless they bravely went ahead and photographed this wonderful and talented person practically bare-assed naked.  Fortunately, Ms. Portman was able to hold up her part as these pictures clearly show.

It would have been easy for Hollywood to turn its back on a core value and portray Ms. Portman as a politically correct, bisexual, blue jean lesbian styled modern feminist and be acclaimed by one and all, but our producers and the studio are made of sterner stuff. The cheap exploitation of women and sex to sell a film is like "Motherhood and Apple Pie" to the rest of us. It is important. Hollywood did not let us down.

See this fabulous article here.

Are you going to just lounge around all day in your underwear?