A Global Warning

I'm sitting here trying to find something calming on my iPod. I have too few calming sorts of songs on there, and tonight I find myself needing calming songs.

This afternoon, Spooky and I took a break and braved the heat (and it was the sort of heat one must brave) to see An Inconvenient Truth at Tara. I almost didn't see it. I mean, it's not like I learned anything new. Not one thing I can think of off the top of my head. Because I read too much of the actual science, the papers in journals and the books that climatologists and paleoclimatologists and other scientists have been writing for decades. I knew, for example, that there's essentially no "controversy" within the scientific community regarding the fact of global warming and humanity's role therein, and that it's politics that use the popular press to create the convenient, confusing illusion of controversy.

It's not so very different than the non-existent "debate" over the fact of biological evolution. Or, as Gore points out in the film, the pseudoscience and press spin employed by the tobacco industry to create doubt in the minds of a public which, they understand, is largely scientifically illiterate. I know these things, though most days I honestly wish that I didn't. I know about the melting Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, about the coming summers when the north pole will be entirely ice free, about the polar bears that are drowning because they can't swim the increasing distances between Arctic ice, and I know about the melting permafrost. I know a thousand damning facts. And I understand most of the science that has revealed those facts. So, what I'm trying to say, I guess, is that I'm not the sort of person this film was made for.

But. That puts me in the minority.

I think almost everyone needs to see this film. In theatres or on DVD. As soon as possible, because there's really not a whole lot of time left.

We've had plenty of wake-up calls. Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans and the U.S. Gulf Coast. The deadly European heat waves. The floods in India. The droughts in China. The loss of Lake Chad and the Aral Sea. The retreating, vanishing glaciers and the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf. It's not a question of waiting for evidence. We have the evidence. It's a question, I think, I sincerely fucking believe, of whether or not it's now too late to change the future.

Indeed, I would say that if there's any fault with An Inconvenient Truth, it lies in Gore's optimism. I have great admiration for this man, and I think he genuinely believes that if he just explains the truth to enough people, and does so with patience and sobriety and a little humour, the world will wake up and rally before it's too late, and then things will get better. And I, personally, think he's wrong in that regard.

But still, I know that I'm a pessimist. And I do hope I'm wrong. I'd very much like to look like a complete fool over this.

Just see the film, okay? Please? Here's the website: An Inconvenient Truth. It's easy to find a theatre where it's playing. Or you can wait for the DVD. And if you should doubt what the film has to say, that's fine. More power to you. That just means you're thinking. Read the studies for yourself. Gore makes no claims about recent climactic events or prevailing scientific opinion regarding global warming and its consequences that cannot be verified in a good university library with access to the internet.

Just see the film.

Shortly after we got home, we learned that An Inconvenient Truth is receiving a special award from the Humanitas Prize, the first documentary to be recognized by the Humanitas Prize since 1995.

Howard Hughes Needs a Break, Please.

Spooky just finished sending out the June issue of Sirenia Digest. And there was a stupid frell up with Yahoo, so that the first half of our mailing list will be receiving the digest twice. That is, two copies. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience. I don't think there's been an issue of Sirenia yet that has been this much trouble to actually get out to readers. I was at work on it last night until 9:32 p.m., then another hour or so after midnight, and then Gordon and I spent much of the late morning and early afternoon getting all the kinks out (oh, hah, hah...). My thanks to Gail of Desert Island Design for getting me the copy of Rick's illustration for "Giants in the Earth" when I'd exhausted all other possible sources. At any rate, I very much hope you guys like this one. Comments here are more than welcome. More than ever, I need...what's it called? Encouragement, I think. And sometime I'll explain how this issue can simultaneously be #6, #7, and #8. Particles and waves. Etc.

Please note that there's now less than three hours remaining in the "Waycross" chapbook auction. This is pretty much the same situation I had with that last copy of Candles for Elizabeth yesterday. I hope to see it go for a little more, as this might be the last time I'm able to offer this book. If you want to buy from me, bid now. Thanks. And here are the links for the other auctions.

Howard Hughes Gets Her Second Wind. (Part One)

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower.
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind.
—William Wordsworth

A long bath with floaty octopoid toys helped a bit, so I feel compelled to make an actual entry. Hopefully, by now, everyone out there who has subscribed has herhisit's copy of the June issue of Sirenia Digest. And like I said a couple of hours ago, comments are especially welcome just now. Sometimes, it feels like all the writing I'm doing for the digest just sort of...vanishes. It's not like the old-fashioned hard-copy stuff that gets reviewed and "reviewed." Though I generally dread reviews (and I loathe "reviews"), I'm starting to feel as though a circuit isn't being completed.

Yesterday was mostly spent on Sirenia Digest, and I've already written about An Inconvenient Truth. But, it remains to be said that yesterday was a good mail day. Indeed, because of one particular package, it was a remarkable mail day. First, the June 2006 issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology arrived, loaded with wonderful things. So far, I've just begun reading a paper on the first complete non-plesiosaur pistosauroid, from the Triassic of China. Spooky got Legendary Pink Dots and Edward Kaspel CDs from blu_muse. Also, the hardback edition of Subterranean Magazine #2, which included "Bradbury Weather," arrived.

And then another box, from Cemetery Dance Publications, came — and Lo! — a sight which I thought mine mortal eyes ne'er would behold. This package, it contained a single shrink-wrapped copy of John Skipp's anthology Mondo Zombie. Now, there's a very, very, very long and equally peculiar story behind this book. It's a yarn of such prodigious length and complexity, of such sudden twists and turns and plummets into unseen abyssal troughs...well, I'm not going to go into it here. I don't even think I remember all of it at this point. Suffice to say, in February 1994, a year before anything of mine had actually appeared in print, any fiction, I got a phone call from John Skipp, who'd been given my number by Linda Marotta (who'd read The Five of Cups a few months earlier), asking if I'd write a story for the fourth Book of the Dead anthology. For those who do not know, in the early '90s, John Skipp & Craig Spector coedited two volumes, Book of the Dead and Book of the Dead 2: Still Dead, set in the world of George Romero's zombie holocaust. The books sold quite well, and Bantam contracted for two more volumes. I was thrilled to be asked to write for such a high-profile anthology, and that March I wrote a short story called "Two Worlds, and In Between." And I mailed it off to John Skipp. And then...well...then the whole thing sort of went to Hell. Which might not have been so bad, except it kept coming back from Hell. Anyway, "Two Worlds, and In Between" was eventually published in Steve Jones' White of the Moon (1997), was collected in From Weird and Distant Shores, and appeared in a couple of other places, as well. There was even very nearly an indie film version. But. I never thought I would actually see anything like the book that Skipp set out to publish. And yet...yesterday, this package arrived. Behind the cut are four photos documenting The Moment:

( Mondo frelling Zombie )

And now it sits on my bookshelf, and I am amazed. It's almost frightening, seeing this book whose beginning extends back into those time-dimmed days of prepublication. Well, almost the same book. Some of the authors pulled out over the years. Some, like me, pulled out and then got pulled back in again. If you happen to have a copy of From Weird and Distant Shores, there's a longer account of the trials and tribulations of Mondo Zombie in the appropriate afterword. 1994-2006. Twelve frelling years. Almost my entire career between now and this book's conception. Wow. You go, Skipp. If anyone out there wants to buy a copy, click here.

There's more news, but I think maybe I'll save it for another post, later this evening, as that was rather long, longer than I'd intended, and I need to get dressed. And I need a salad. And maybe some vodka.