Saturday, January 21, 2006

Grendel's Laundry List: Post-Eschatological Note from R. A. Lafferty THE DAY AFTER THE WORLD ENDED I'm going to talk about the peculiar science-fictionish circumstance and condition in which we are living.  It is, unfortunately, an overworked theme and situation that has been used hundreds of times and has never been well-handled even once.  It is the 'Day After The World Ended'  situation, subtitled 'Grubbing in the Rubble'.  It is the business of making out, a little bit, after a total catastrophe has hit.  There are possibilities for several good stories in this situation, and I puzzled for a long time as to why no good ones had ever been written.  I even myself tried and failed to write some good ones based on this set-up.  And only recently have I discovered why plausible fiction cannot be based on this situation. The reason here is that fact precludes fiction.  Being inside the situation, we are a little too close to it to see it clearly.  Science Fiction has long been babbling about cosmic destructions and the ending of either physical or civilized worlds, but it has all been displaced babble.  SF has been carrying on about near-future or far-future destructions and its mind-set will not allow it to realize that the destruction of our world has already happened in the quite recent past, that today is 'The Day After The World Ended'.   Science Fiction is not alone in failing to understand what has happened.  There is an almost impenetrable amnesia that obstructs the examination of the actual catastrophe. I am speaking literally about a real happening, the end of the world in which we lived till fairly recent years.  The destruction or unstructuring of that world, which is still sometimes referred to as 'Western Civilization' or 'Modern Civilization', happened suddenly.  That world, which was 'The World' for a few centuries, is gone.  Though it ended quite recently, the amnesia concerning its ending is general.  Several historiographers have given the opinion that these amnesias are features common to all 'ends of worlds'.  Nobody now remembers our late world very clearly, and nobody will ever remember it clearly in the natural order of things.  It can't be recollected because recollection is one of the things it took with it when it went... From R.A. Lafferty Non-Fiction: It's Down the Slippery Cellar Stairs 10:50:06 PM    comment []

A DIFFERENT DANCE: RAY LAFFERTY'S DOOR   Ray Lafferty was a Tulsa science fiction writer. He died in 2002. I never knew him, but I have heard many stories about him from the members of the OSFW (Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers) group who were his friends and admirers. This was the door to his study, I am told, and if I understood correctly, every flat surface not covered by books was covered by collage, of which Ray himself was the creator. When he was moved to a nursing home after a stroke, all his stuff was cleared out of his house, I think so the house could be remodeled and sold. (The University of Tulsa was offered his papers, but shamefully, they don't seem too interested.) The writer and poet Warren Brown managed to save this door from the trash. I'm glad he did. Every time I visit Warren's house, I am drawn to stare at this extraordinary object. I find it rather like watching a strange movie with the sound turned off—I know there's a narrative in the images, but I can't quite suss it out. It is too late for you to withdraw. The damage is done to you. That faintly odd taste in your mouth, that smallest of tingles which you feel, they signal the snake-death. "Die a little. There is reason for it. R. A. Lafferty 1914-2002 6:10:03 PM    comment []

WALK WITH ME AT ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS On my daily walk yesterday, I explored Oaklawn, an old cemetery just across the expressway from the tall buildings downtown. I had it to myself, most of the people buried there have been dead a long time, I don't think they get too many visitors—local historians, maybe. There were many, many veterans of the Civil War, WWI, WWII, and some who served in Korea. Since this cemetery was opened sometime around 1900, all the Civil War vets buried here survived the war they fought as young men, and lived to tell about it as old men—if they wanted to talk about it. Some of the veterans of the subsequent wars represented here in stone and buried in this ground did die in their wars. As I wrote in my Roadside Attractions post, every generation or so old men think up a war to pour money into, and send young men (and now young women) to be used up in it. No one can explain why, because the whys are all used up, too. The undeclared, illegal, and endless war, the Dubyad against the Jihad, rolls on. The fucks continue to fly through the rolling donuts. Men, women, children, and young (and not so young) soldiers continue to die so that the Vietnam era draft-dodging potty-mouthed hero-slandering torture-condoning Potentates of the Bush Regime and their media whores can continue their inside-the-beltway circle jerk, and wipe their KY-greased butts with the Constitution while they're at it. Meanwhile, Soldiers and innocents continue to die. AMERICAN SOLDIERS DEAD IN IRAQ: 2222   12:09:54 AM    comment []