May 30: Ravenous Blob of Plasma, Les Murray, "Science Fiction"

In keeping with my previous post, I found out that Les Murray has something to say about science fiction, as well.  I'm not sure Murray's vision of the future is very comforting, but it proves that science fiction isn't just about a ravenous blob of plasma that oozes all over town, absorbing everything in sight and growing to the size of a blue whale.

No.  Science fiction can be about hope and loneliness and pain, as well.  It's about possibilities.

Saint Marty sees a cheeseburger in his future.

Science Fiction

by:  Les Murray

I can travel
faster than light
so can you
the speed of thought
the only trouble
is at destinations
our thought balloons
are coated invisible
no one there sees us
and we can't get out
to be real or present
phone and videophone
are almost worse
we don't see a journey
but stay in our space
just talking and joking
with those we reach
but can never touch
the nothing that can hurt us
how lovely and terrible
and lonely is this.

May 20: Kilgore Trout, Science Fiction, Hope

Night came to the garden of giraffes, and Billy Pilgrim slept without dreaming for a while, and then he traveled in time.  He woke up with his head under a blanket in a ward for nonviolent mental patients in a veterans' hospital near Lake Placid, New York.  It was springtime in 1948, three years after the end of the war.

Billy uncovered his head.  The windows of the the ward were open.  Birds were twittering outside.  "Poo-tee-weet?" one asked him.  The sun was high.  There were twenty-nine other patients assigned to the ward, but they were all outdoors now, enjoying the day.  They were free to come and go as they pleased, to go home, even, if they like--and so was Billy Pilgrim.  They had come here voluntarily, alarmed by the outside world.

Billy had committed himself in the middle of his final year at the Ilium School of Optometry.  Nobody suspected that he was going crazy.  Everybody else thought he looked fine and was acting fine.  Now he was in the hospital.  The doctors agreed.  He was going crazy.

They didn't think it had anything to do with the war.  They were sure Billy was going to pieces because his father had thrown him into the deep end of the Y.M.C.A. swimming pool when he was a little boy, and had then taken him to the rim of the Grand Canyon.

The man assigned to the bed next to Billy's was a former infantry captain named Eliot Rosewater.  Rosewater was sick and tired of being drunk all the time.

It was Rosewater who introduced Billy to science fiction, and in particular to the writings of Kilgore Trout.  Rosewater had a tremendous collection of science-fiction paperbacks under his bed.  He had brought them to the hospital in a steamer trunk.  Those beloved, frumpish books gave off a smell that permeated the ward--like flannel pajamas that hadn't been changed for a month, or like Irish stew.

Kilgore Trout became Billy's favorite living author, and science fiction became the only sort of tales he could read.

Rosewater was twice as smart as Billy, but he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways.  They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war.  Rosewater, for instance, had shot a fourteen-year-old foreman, mistaking him for a German soldier.  So it goes.  And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden.  So it goes.

So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe.  Science fiction was a big help.

Of course, science fiction is a huge part of Slaughterhouse.  Billy is unstuck in time through the entire novel.  He travels on a flying saucer, lives in a zoo on the planet of Tralfamadore.  Now, the question is whether the science fiction aspects of the book are just the results of Billy's unstable mind, or are they real?  Is Billy a time and flying saucer traveler?  Does Tralfamadore exist out in the far reaches of the universe, beyond stars and time, or in the inner reaches of Billy's brain?

I prefer to accept Vonnegut's science fiction as the truth of the novel.  I want to believe in the collapse of time and the presence of alien life on the planet Earth.  Of course, I grew up watching sci-fi movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet.  I loved sci-fi before Star Wars.  Grew up watching reruns of the original Star Trek.  I wanted a tribble for a pet.

I think my attraction to the genre is very much the same as Billy Pilgrim's.  I love the idea of reinventing myself and the universe.  Science fiction is all about possibility for something better.  Or something worse.  It all depends on what aliens have taken over the planet, and whether those aliens eat human beings, breed them as slaves, or find them "fascinating," to quote Spock.

I want to believe in a better future (hard to do in Trumpland right now).  I want to reinvent myself into a better me.  Richer.  Smarter.  Thinner.  More successful.  All I need to do is come up with a way to teleport myself across the universe or meet a kind Tralfamdorian who likes my jokes. 

Of course, Vonnegut uses science fiction as a way of dealing with, as he says above, "the greatest massacre in European history."  Reality is too painful, too horrific.  So, Vonnegut changes reality and time, gives himself an escape hatch on a flying saucer.  It's through this alternate reality that Vonnegut is able to come to terms with all that he witnessed in Dresden.  Kilgore Trout and the bird that sings "Poo-tee-weet?" fill in the gaps, ask the questions, provide the music in a world that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to Vonnegut.

That is what, I think, science fiction is all about, whether it be dystopian or pulp.  The Day of the Triffids or 2001:  A Space Odyssey.  It's about making sense out of senselessness, hope out of ashes.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for martians and Jedi knights.

August 31: Goldfinch, Alleluia Moment, Charlie Chaplin

The goldfinch here on the fringed thistletop was burying her head with each light thrust deeper into the seedcase.  Her fragile legs braced to her task on the vertical, thorny stem; the last of the thistledown sprayed and poured.  Is there anything I could eat so lightly, or could I die so fair?  With a ruffle of feathered wings the goldfinch fluttered away, out of range of the broken window's frame and toward the deep blue shade of the cliffs where late fireflies already were rising alight under the trees.  I was weightless; my bones were taut skins blown with buoyant gas; it seemed that if I inhaled too deeply, my shoulders and head would waft off.  Alleluia.

Dillard is having what I call an Alleluia moment.  It's when, for whatever reason, grace sort of descends upon you.  The whole world suddenly seems transformed into beauty.  Dillard, watching a goldfinch eating thistle, feels the very pull of gravity dissipate from her body.  She's weightless.  Winged.  As if, with a single breath, she could float into the heavens.

I realize that last night's posts weren't very grace-filled.  No Alleluia moments.  Understand that, every time these half-truths and rumors about job eliminations spread through the university departments, I get a little unnerved.  It's sort of like I'm living on the fringe of a forest that's raging with fire.  The wind shifts in my direction, and my house burns down.  At least, that's what it feels like.

I am trying to embrace grace today.  Tonight, I teach my film class.  We are watching a Charlie Chaplin movie.  Seeing Chaplin in a boxing ring, dancing around his opponent and the referee, is enough to lift my spirits.  Laughter does that, like turning on a light in a dark room.  Plus, I really enjoy talking about films and film theory.  It makes all those hours I spent as a kid reading books about the history of horror, science fiction, and animated movies worthwhile, as if I was simply preparing myself for this evening.

I don't feel quite as transformed as Dillard does in the passage I quoted.  But, after a couple of days, I have a better perspective on my future at the university.  I'm not going to start packing up my office just yet.  I don't feel quite so angry or hopeless.  After twenty years, five university presidents, seven English Department Heads, I'm still here, talking about writing and film and literature.  That says something.

They're going to have to light a stick of dynamite under Saint Marty's ass to get rid of him.

Laughter is a sign of grace, I think

August 1: Technology, Poet of the Week, Kyle Dargan, "The Robots are Coming"

I think technology is a wonderful thing.  I started this blog six years ago, and I've written close to three thousand posts of greater and lesser quality.  Technology allows me to find a new Poet of the Week every Monday.  It allows me to teach a class of 30 people about film without ever meeting one student face-to-face.  (One of my students this semester is taking my course from India.)  Those are the great benefits of technology.

However, I still don't understand hashtags and Twitter.  Wouldn't know how to Snapchat if my life depended upon it.  Technology, I think, has its limitations.  I will never give up the pleasure of holding a book in my hands, turning the pages, reading it, smelling that new book smell.  My kids are technology hounds.  My daughter was out hunting Pokemons within the first hour that Pokemon Go went live.  I have a healthy suspicion of technology.  Technology is a tool, not a way of life.

Kyle Dargan, the Poet of the Week, has a poem about this subject.  It's a little social commentary, a little history, a little science fiction.

Saint Marty has always thought robots were a little scary.

The Robots are Coming

by:  Kyle Dargan

with clear-cased woofers for heads,

no eyes. They see us as a bat sees

a mosquito—a fleshy echo,

a morsel of sound. You've heard

their intergalactic tour busses

purring at our stratosphere's curb.

They await counterintelligence

transmissions from our laptops

and our blue teeth, await word

of humanity's critical mass,

our ripening. How many times

have we dreamed it this way:

the Age of the Machines,

postindustrial terrors whose

tempered paws—five welded fingers

—wrench back our roofs,

siderophilic tongues seeking blood,

licking the crumbs of us from our beds.

O, great nation, it won't be pretty.

What land will we now barter

for our lives ? A treaty inked

in advance of the metal ones' footfall.

Give them Gary. Give them Detroit,

Pittsburgh, Braddock—those forgotten

nurseries of girders and axels.

Tell the machines we honor their dead,

distant cousins. Tell them

we tendered those cities to repose

out of respect for welded steel's

bygone era. Tell them Ford

and Carnegie were giant men, that war

glazed their palms with gold.

Tell them we soft beings mourn

manufacture's death as our own.

April 8: Saint Agabus

For those of my readers who've been wondering what has happened to Manly Man Poetry Night, it went on hiatus for a couple of weeks. On the fourth Thursday of every month, I host a book club at my house, and the Thursday after that was Maunday Thursday. Needless to say, my pastor friend was otherwise engaged that evening, and so was I. But, never fear, loyal and faithful poetry fans (there has to be at least two of you out there). Manly Man Poetry Night has reconvened, and all is right with the world. The muses are at work, and the onion rings are on the plate.

So, this Thursday, my pastor friend and I met for dinner. Now, for those of you that think dinner refers to lunch, let me correct you. You're wrong. Lunch is lunch, and dinner refers to the third meal of the day, generally eaten after 5 p.m. We met at Big Boy at 6:30 p.m., and, since neither of us had time to eat, we both ordered meals.

I ordered a great farmer's omelet with ham and cheese and onions and peppers. It was served on a bed of hash browns with a side of rye toast. My friend ordered the club sandwich, I believe, with a side of onion rings (of course), plus the soup and salad bar. After we sat for a while and complained about the snowstorm shaking the windows of the restaurant, we moved on to our poetry for the night.

We used the same tabloid exercise that we used at our previous meeting a few weeks before. (For those of you that missed that posting, check out March 18 on Saint Alexander. Also, try to keep up better.) Now, as before, I tried to kill two birds with one poem. I wrote about both the tabloid headline and the saint for the day.

If you couldn't tell by my recent entry that made use of Star Wars, I will confess to you right now that I am a bit of a science fiction geek. When the original Star Wars was released in theaters, I saw it 27 times. (I'm not talking about the bastardized version Lucas released prior to ruining the series with Jar Jar Binks. I'm talking Alec Guinness as a flesh-and-blood Obi wan, and the kiss between Luke and Leia before it became yucky and incestuous.) So, it should come as no surprise that the headline I chose to base my poem on was "Martians Monitor Middle East Violence," which has echoes of War of the Worlds (both Spielberg's and George Pal's versions) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original with Michael Rennie, not the dumb Keanu Reeves remake with locust clouds of alien fleas).

The saint for the day was Agabus, a contemporary of the twelve apostles and probably one of the 72 disciples. Agabus's story is pretty much like the stories of all the disciples. He wandered the deserts and towns, spreading the ideas and words of Jesus, working a few miracles along the way to keep people talking. Agabus had the gift of prophecy. He foretold the coming of a famine in the Roman Empire, which took place in 42 to 44 A.D. He also prophesied the imprisonment of Paul, which is referred to in Acts 21.

So, I have a New Testament prophet, Martians, and the Middle East. Add some onion rings, a few Diet Pepsis, and a weekend of revisions, and you get the following poem:

Martians Monitor Middle East Violence

Pile-8 met Agabus in a desert
In Palestine, came down in a wheel
From the stars, came from the blood planet
On a quest for truth about Earth's children.
Agabus, fresh from Roman famine,
Called Pile-8 an angel, a winged
Servant of God, waited for the visitor
To deliver a message from the one
Agabus called peace's prince.
Pile-8 blinked his olive black eyes,
Kept silent, wings folded, waited
For a sign to unleash death's ray
Upon the hairless, sand ape.

Agabus filled Pile-8's eight ears
With words of love and forgiveness,
Words of a son of the universe,
Whipped, torn, spiked, speared.
Agabus talked of this son
Rising, shaking off the tentacles
Of death like a great, blue whale,
Flooding the world with oceans of light.
Pile-8's stomachs quivered into fists
When the ape called the one who rose
The lord. The savior. The way. The truth.

Like his cousin did for Ezekiel, Pile-8
Took Agabus into his wheel, probed
The grey matter of his skull
For fragments, pictures of this truth
Giver. All he found were dreams
Of deep wells filled with sun,
Cups pressed to thirsty lips,
Baskets spilling thousands of silver
Fish into dry, empty lake beds.
And bread. Bread steaming. Bread white.
Bread dark. Bread yellow as honey.
Bread red as Pile-8's home.
After days and days of this bread,
Pile-8 returned Agabus to the sand,
Then ascended back to sky, to stars,
To black space, to his planet of war.

Pile-8 couldn't rest after that time,
Always felt hollow. He watched
Earth for two thousand solar cycles,
Watched as the brothers and sisters
Of Agabus whipped, tore, spiked,
Speared each other, over and over,
Acted as hungry, thirsty as famine, drought.
More than once, Pile-8 aimed his fire
At the deserts, almost rained apocalypse
On the warring children of this world.
But, always, the dreams of Agabus
Stopped him, filled his four bellies
With a need he couldn't name,
A need for more than the cold, killing
Rocks of Mars. A need for wells
Full of light. Bottomless cups.
Fish multiplying exponentially
From baskets. And bread.
White as polar caps. Dark as mud.
Yellow as citric fruit. Red
As his mother's deep womb.