Filed under: Alzheimer's, Art, General Musings, NPR, Society, Survival, Writing stuff
Saturday afternoon they announced a new “Three Minute Fiction” contest on NPR. Here’s a bit about the theme this time around:
Round 7 Rules
Your story must have somebody arriving in town and somebody leaving town.
Your story must be 600 words or fewer. One entry per person. your deadline is 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 25.
* * * * * * *
Had a nice bump up in downloads of Communion of Dreams so far this month. About 270 copies already. I’ve really stopped keeping track, but that puts it somewhere about 32,000 downloads so far.
Which has gotten me thinking. After going through and preparing the manuscript to self-publish Her Final Year, I know what is involved in that. It’d be simplicity itself to set things up to self-publish CoD. Given that I haven’t heard squat from Trapdoor books about publishing the book since the start of the year, I’ve given up on that possibility.
Then again, I am very disappointed in the sales of Her Final Year, since we’ve only sold about 10% of what we needed to sell in order to just break even on the costs of setting that up. I mean, we’re talking only a couple of dozen books so far. Damned depressing, especially given how much everyone has said that there is a huge need for the book and how good it is.
So, is it worth it? Would you actually buy a copy of Communion of Dreams?
And can I actually trust that?
* * * * * * *
There was an interesting item on Morning Edition this morning, about a relatively new kind of psychotherapy in use with people facing the end of life. It’s called Dignity Therapy. Here’s an excerpt from the story:
The something that Chochenoff decided to create was a formal written narrative of the patient’s life — a document that could be passed on to whomever they chose. The patients would be asked a series of questions about their life history and the parts they remember most or think are most important. Their answers would be transcribed and presented to them for editing until, after going back and forth with the therapist, a polished document resulted that could be passed on to the people that they loved.
Chochenoff named this process dignity therapy, and for the last 10 years he has used it with the dying. And one of the things that has struck him about the processes is this: The stories we tell about ourselves at the end of our lives are often very different than the stories that we tell about ourselves at other points.
“When you are standing at death’s door and you have a chance to say something to someone, I absolutely think that that proximity to death is going to influence the words that come out of your mouth,” Chochenoff says.
* * * * * * *
I by-and-large hid from all the 9/11 memorials over the weekend.
I have plenty of experience in dealing with traumatic loss. For me, remembering a loved one who has died is important, but so is moving on with life. And I can’t do that by constantly poking at the empty place left in my heart.
I know that I am different from most people in this way. Or at least I assume that I am, based on what I see. And I’m not just talking about the 9/11 memorials all weekend.
Recently, I was contacted by a gentleman who was doing some research for an ‘online memorial’ site. He wanted some details on my father’s death, along with specifics as to his burial location and my mom’s. He was polite about it, but somewhat surprisingly insistent almost to the point of annoyance.
I found this odd, and did a little checking. Turns out this fellow is part of something I call “competitive memorializing” – there’s a whole online community of these folks, who just like trying to see how many such memorials that they can create. Not for loved ones, or people they knew, either. Just total strangers who they for whatever reason decide they should “memorialize.” Who knew?
And here’s a small confession: I didn’t have most of the information this fellow was wanting. It’s just not important to me to remember my dad that way. His body was just a shell – it was what his life was that matters.
* * * * * * *
Saturday afternoon they announced a new “Three Minute Fiction” contest on NPR. Here’s a bit about the theme this time around:
Round 7 Rules
Your story must have somebody arriving in town and somebody leaving town.
Your story must be 600 words or fewer. One entry per person. your deadline is 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 25.
I have some thoughts on this, tied to the ideas of memory and memorials and the things I have said above.
Because the stories we tell are important.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the HFY blog.)
NASA Spacecraft Data Suggest Water Flowing on Mars
PASADENA, Calif. — Observations from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars.
“NASA’s Mars Exploration Program keeps bringing us closer to determining whether the Red Planet could harbor life in some form,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said, “and it reaffirms Mars as an important future destination for human exploration.”
Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring. Repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars’ southern hemisphere.
One thing we know from extremophiles on Earth: if there’s water, life will somehow manage to survive there, no matter how hostile the conditions are.
Will that apply to Mars as well?
We’ll see.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Carl Sagan, Nuclear weapons, Science, Science Fiction, Survival, Violence, YouTube
My wife and I decided to revisit the Cosmos series recently. It holds up surprisingly well for a pop-science program from 30 years ago.
Tonight’s episode was the finale. And I was struck by what it was like back then, to contemplate the possibility of nuclear war. I think a lot of people today who weren’t aware during that time have difficulty in understanding just how palpable that threat was. Here’s a good bit from the episode that explains it better than I could:
Is it any wonder that a post-apocalyptic world was the setting for so much science fiction generated during that time? Any wonder at all?
We may or may not have threaded the needle and survived the time of peak technological vulnerability. Not only are there other threats out there to our long term survival, but even the threat of nuclear war is not passed – not hardly. I still fully expect that there will be another war in which nuclear weapons will be a factor, and such use could easily spin out of control and engulf the entire planet.
But the hair trigger we lived with for some 30 years is no more. Things certainly are not perfect now, but they *are* better. We did indeed decide to survive, at least through that time. And that was an important step.
Jim Downey
Interesting news from the Indian Space Research Organization: discovery of a very large lava tube which looks like it’d be very suitable as the basis for a habitat/research facility on the Moon.
From the Calcutta Telegraph:
New Delhi, Feb. 23: A giant volcanic cave beneath the moon’s surface discovered by Indian scientists last year through an analysis of archived images from the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft may be a candidate site for a future human habitat.
Researchers at the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, analysed 3D images from Chandrayaan-1’s Terrain Mapping Camera to identify the 1.7-kilometre long cave in a region of the moon called Oceanus Procellarum.
The hollow structure created by ancient volcanic lava flows on the Moon may provide lunar explorers a natural shelter from radiation storms and extreme variations between day and night temperatures encountered on the lunar surface, the SAC scientists said.
Glad to see someone is thinking about the future of humans in space.
Jim Downey
I was finishing up some work in the bindery this afternoon, just as I was finishing listening to The Two Towers. And this passage caught my ear:
And then black despair came down on him, and Sam bowed to the ground, and drew his grey hood over his head, and night came into his heart, and he knew no more.
When at last the blackness passed, Sam looked up and shadows were about him; but for how many minutes or hours the world had gone dragging on he could not tell. He was still in the same place, and still his master lay beside him dead. The mountains had not crumbled nor the earth fallen into ruin.
That may be one of the most masterful depictions ever written of how someone reacts to the death of a loved one.
Jim Downey
Holbrooke was the chief architect of the Dayton Accords, the agreement which helped end the war in Bosnia. The agreement was signed fifteen years ago today. The veteran US diplomat was 69.
* * * * * * *
I took the phone call in the kitchen of my aunt & uncle’s house (this was long before cell phones). I had spent my adolescence in this home, after they took me in following the death of my parents. Now myself and some friends were staying there for a big SCA event to be held in my hometown: my first coronation as “king“. It was going to be a festive event, a day which was to be filled with fun and a bit of pomp, something to be celebrated and enjoyed.
I listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. We talked. Not many words were used, but much was said. I hung up the phone, looked to my future wife. Even then, she could read my face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Something’s happened.”
* * * * * * *
Betty, the friend who was going to be my “queen”, looked at me. We were in a small room set aside for our use prior to the coronation ceremony. I don’t remember if anyone else was in the room at the time, but things were generally in chaos. What had ‘happened’ was that the night before a carload of friends who were traveling to attend our coronation had been killed in an accident. 4 people, known and beloved, were dead. Everyone was in shock, understandably.
Betty looked at me. She was a smart, caring woman, capable of dealing with just about anything. A child-abuse investigator, she had the training and temperament to understand tough emotional situations and still see what needed to be done. At that moment I realized just how incredibly fortunate I was to have her as a partner in the role I was about to play.
Betty looked at me, and I at her. There was compassion in her face. “Suddenly, it’s not just a game anymore, is it?”
* * * * * * *
Sunday was the anniversary of my father’s death. It’s been 41 years. My mom died about 18 months later. Both deaths were unexpected – one due to violence, the other accident.
They were not the first deaths I had known. And they certainly have not been the last. I’ve lost friends and loved ones. I’ve been there at the end to do what I can for another.
At 52, this is not uncommon. Most of us experience these things as we move through adulthood. But, prodigy that I was, I was ahead of the curve when I was younger.
* * * * * * *
Betty looked at me, and I at her. There was compassion in her face. “Suddenly, it’s not just a game anymore, is it?”
“No. Real people, real emotions.” I remember thinking that for all that that day was not what I had expected, there was some small part of me which was . . . satisfied . . . that I had entirely too much experience with such matters. Even with the shock and pain, I felt capable of dealing with what was to come.
She saw it, and knew. “Well, let’s go do what we can for everyone.”
* * * * * * *
Holbrooke was the chief architect of the Dayton Accords, the agreement which helped end the war in Bosnia. The agreement was signed fifteen years ago today. The veteran US diplomat was 69.
The radio moved on to the next story. My wife glanced at me. We were both getting dressed to go on our morning walk, adding extra layers because of the cold. “69. I heard that earlier. He was just ten years older than me.”
“Yeah.”
“It got me thinking about, well, unexpected death.”
“Me too.” I paused, looked at her. “I think about that all the time.”
“I know.”
* * * * * * *
Jim Downey
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, tech
Way back in the lost mists of time, someone, somewhere on Facebook decided that they would post something in recognition of friends and loved ones struggling with a disease. Someone else liked what they said, and so in solidarity, cross-posted the same item, perhaps tweaking it just a little. This process continued, and a meme was born. Here is the latest version of it:
Most people have 1000 wishes for Christmas; a cancer patient only has one, to get better. I know 97% of you won’t repost this to your status, but my friends will be the 3% that do. In honor of someone who has passed, is still fighting, or survived cancer.
OK, it could have just been a year ago that this particular meme started. I’ve only been on Facebook for about six months. But I have seen multiple variations of this thing sweep through my ‘friends’, each time with a different disease or cause substituted for “cancer”. My guess, however, in watching the social dynamic, is that this sort of thing has been going on forever.
Harmless? Just a bit of social bonding, people taking a moment to express a concern they have?
Probably. And perhaps it is only because I’m coming up on the anniversary of my father’s death that this latest item rubbed me the wrong way. I know I get sensitive about such things about this time of year.
But I don’t think it is harmless. I think it is a form of emotional blackmail: “Do this or you don’t *really* care about cancer, you heartless bastard.” And because people don’t want to come off as being a heartless bastard, they fall for it.
I’ve considered driving this point home by going through and posting every single variation on this meme I can think of, just to point out the absurdity of the practice. There’s cancer. Diabetes. Heart disease. Violence. Child abuse. Automotive safety. Terrorism. Et cetera, et cetera. I could spend the whole next month doing nothing but posting status updates which are variations on this theme.
Of course, all it would do is just alienate everyone who knows me. And that pretty much defeats the purpose for my signing up for Facebook to start with.
But that is exactly my point – why I don’t think these things are harmless. Because they prey upon the social lubrication through which the site functions, leeching away real emotion and connectivity. In some ways, this is an artificial lifeform, the online equivalent of a parasite.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Ballistics, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Survival
Well, well, well. For the last couple of months the totals have been slowly approaching our all time high of 303,000 hits in December 2008 – the first full month when we launched BBTI and made a big splash in the firearms world.
November 2010 blew that number right out of the water. We had a total of 384,578 hits last month.
Wow.
As I noted last Friday, I was pretty confident that we would break the all-time high in November. But a big surge at the end of the month, in part thanks to the article in Concealed Carry Magazine but in bigger part to an article which showed up on the popular Survival Blog which cited our data. Thanks, guys!
News on Communion of Dreams is less dramatic. Things are still pending with publication, and I don’t have much info to share about that yet. Downloads, which had jumped in October, have dropped back to their usual range of 600+. As soon as I have details to share with everyone about the publication date, I will definitely post it here and on FaceBook.
All in all, the continued success of both of these endeavors amazes and pleases me. Now we just need to add in similar success with the care-giving book . . .
Happy December, everyone!
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the BBTI blog.)
Communion Of Dreams 