Talk about Benjamin Rosenbaum here, if you like. Or check out his web site. Or email him. Or join his writing announcements list. Or not.
Here is the exploded Rumor Mill.
.
| Hey Ben;
It has been a long time and I thought i made a post to you some months back and just wanted to reconnect with you. I wonder if my Year Ray login confused you. I think i was using Nigritia back then but its all foggy. Glad to see you have been buzy. Happy Holidays and Good tidings. Douglas Curt Lyons antcbd@aol.com |
| thankee EBear! |
| Niiiiiiiiiiice Locus review of the Zeppelin story, Ben! |
| Benjamin - email me at:
threeoutside A T gmail D O T com |
| My email is back up again. It was only down for a bit, it seems.
Hey Terry, I'd love a gmail invite. I had one, but I misplaced it... :-/ |
| Hey Ben,
I don't know if your mail is still down, but I sent you mail and now I'm nervous you didn't get it. Can you mail me? jae at sff dot net Jae |
| Benjamin: is it feasible for you to open a free gmail account? I have some invitations - except I have to have an email address for them to send the invitation to you. Urg.
Anyone think of a way around this? If Benjamin wants a gmail account, I mean? |
| Grrr... my website and email are down! And so is my web provider's site (http://www.digitalspace.net)
My website provider is not usually evil... they've been pretty good, actually. But now I feel a bit stranded without email! :-( |
| Hmm. Okay. I guess that's sort of relevant to something or other. |
| Israeli Relief Team of 14 Leaves for Sri Lanka Tonight
For immediate release: (January 9, 2005), by IsraAID (www.israaid.org.il) Tonight, ‘The Israel Campaign For South East Asia Disaster Relief,’ spearheaded by IsraAID, will be sending a humanitarian team of 14 medical and logistical personnel to Sri Lanka to assist thousands of people affected by the Tsunami. IsraAID has put together and coordinated a team made up of among others, medical personnel from Magen David Adom and logistical personnel from the Humanitarian Arm of the Kibbutz movement. The group, headed by Ms. Gal Lusky and Dr. Zvi Beigenberg, will be working near the southernmost city of Matara and laying the groundwork for future Israeli Jewish emergency medical and feeding projects in the field. The team will be bringing relief items including pharmaceuticals, kitchen supplies and tents to be used for the projects. The team will establish a field clinic, which will offer locals medical assistance with an emphasis on pediatrics and infectious diseases. Along side the clinic, a Jewish Emergency Feeding Station will be erected with three large kitchens offering nutritious meals to thousands of people left homeless. Among the groups and supporters taking part in the ‘Israel Campaign For South East Asia Disaster Relief’ are: American Jewish Committee; B’nai B’rith International; Magen David Adom; Yad Sarah; Hadassah; Council for Israeli International Businesses; National Youth Movements; ORT; Naamat; Ve’ahavta; Meir Panim; The National Food Bank Organization; Lions Club and other non-governmental groups in Israel and around the world. Supporting the national campaign are some government offices such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Welfare and Tel Aviv Municipality. More donations are still urgently needed in order to provide a substantial Israeli and Jewish humanitarian presence on the ground, which will help demonstrate the compassion and capabilities of the Jewish people and Israel to nations in South East Asia and the world at large. For more information please contact Shachar Zahavi at: szahavi@hotmail.com or visit www.israaid.org.il End |
| Thanks! :-)
Dr. Topp, come now. So what if I do not exist? Let us not be so limiting in the scope of that which we approbate. Would it be the first time a nonexistent author made the Preliminary Ballot? Surely not. Glad you liked the story, E. |
| Sweet! Fingers crossed for you, Benjamin! |
| Good luck on the Neb, Benjamin. Very nice! |
| I read on the Asimov's forum that he's on the preliminary Nebula ballot with his great story "Embracing-the-New" published in Asimov's. :)
~E Thomas |
| Re: Message 453529
What is this Nebula nomination of which Dr. Topp speaks? |
| Mr. Rosenbaum,
Sincerest congratulations on your nomination for the Nebula award. Assuming, of course, that you actually exist. Sincerely, Dr. Zelda Topp |
| Thanks, Ben.
And what is this word 'sleep' that you mention? |
| Man, Mikal, yours is really CREEPY!
I'm supposed to sleep after that? Yeesh! |
| Ben--
Well, I was curious right off when Tim and Heather put our stories together as a 'linked pair.' in their intro. Your story was short enough that nothing could be given away too soon, but I got clues from -- (I was going to go on, but god forbid I do a spoiler in your topic!) Suffice it to say that yes, I knew there would be a speculative element (again, merely from the venue and the editorial link of our stories), and, no, I couldn't guess where the element would be. Which is, I suppose, why I enjoyed it so much. |
| (Ah, I found Horton's mention of "Night Waking". Cool.) |
| Thanks, Mikal!
He did? Where did you see that? I'm really curious how people read that story -- did you get the speculative element? And if so, when? |
| Liked your Flytrap story, Ben. Guess Rich Horton did, too...;p |
| Thanks Charlie! Massive congratulations on the books. You done us proud.
I think S. L. was confusing William Vollman with Bill the Vole-Man, another aquaintance of ours, about whom the less said, perhaps, the better. |
| Weird. I thought Vollman was the author of Butterfly Stories and Whores for Gloria and books like that. I wonder who the hell Kermit is thinking of.
Anyway, I've turned in my two book MSs and am working on new stuff and come back to the Rumor Mill and see all the fun I've been missing. Congratulations on the McSweeney's sale, Ben! Charlie |
| Ben,
Vollman looks so innocent, doesn't he? Babyfaced Billy's gone back to graduate school AGAIN to try to pick up some credentials, though why he thinks he needs them at this point is beyond me. As is his choice to attend, God in his infinite wisdom may only guess why, Ohio State. I mean, sure, Tim Gregory is a really first rate classicist. But the Romans? Please. Someone with Vollman's prodigious linguistic talents should study truly ancient history. I expect him to grab his sheepskin from the factory there and then promptly funk out and run off again. In the meantime, he and Osmir have apparently been in frequent communication, and Osmir is all on fire for "bookeye" football. (Luljeta is already a thing of the past: it will be weeks before I dare to mention her and find out what happened.) It's a very small world -- I met McSweeney in Nepal, I think it was at Thyangboche, when I was still birding and trying to add Ithaginis cruentus to my life list. Tim was doing the same thing, and though the blood pheasants were a bit of a disappointment, tame as they were, the Tibetan snowcocks were spectacular. In any case, this was some years before he started the magazine, but he was bitten by the publishing bug even then and went on for hours about it. He promised to send my copies at one point, but they've never caught up with me. The perils of international mail, I suppose. I shall write and ask him to send along the issue with your piece in it. Is it non-fiction again? You have a genius for that. Alas, we are not at the Hittite dig after all. Our putative hosts were so dismayed by the outcome of the American election that they denied us access. I'm sure it is only temporary. They refuse to accept the proof of my Canadian passport, and they laughed outright at my old Irish passport (I must really get one for the EU I suppose). But never fear, Osmir will find us a way in. He is off, even as I type this, determining local contraband preferences. Best wishes, S. L. Kermit |
| Thanks, Simon. |
| congrats on the McSweeney's sale!
It's one of my major goals to one day break into McSweeney's. |
| Jeez, that Osmir. I guess you've got to follow your star... We never should have introduced him to William Vollman.
Good luck on the Hittites! |
| Benjamin,
I am happy to hear from you again and moved by your concern, but don't fear since I'm posting this from some little cybercafe on Kýrým Caddesi in Ankara. I will be leaving within the hour to a private dig that you would melt in envy to hear about. I can only tell you right now that we may be on the verge of the most important discovery about the Hittites since Bokasköy! I don't know whether to throttle Osmir or toast him! The lovesick fool absconded on me again! This time it was with Luljeta, who is, or was, an underage (as you might well have guessed) Albanian prostitute. But she really is a very sweet girl, made the most delicious qofte të fërguara the week she was with us, and you know my general feelings about Albanian quisine, and after what Osmir, you know his temper, did to her pimp, he really did have to depart abruptly, and needed money quick to do it. Perhaps he has finally found his happiness. I do hope to see him again some day. I apologize for the immoderation of some of my earlier comments. Truly, I was on edge about this Hittite discovery, and feeling rather cross, but now it appears that all is happening for the best, and we may be able to completely reshape our understanding of how vowels were introduced into Nesili, and in the process, redefine the role of the pankus. Touching your own areas of interest, I believe that we will find further evidence of the predecessors of Mezipatheh--the roots on that one are, as you well know, indescribably old. Not that it is likely to ever come to light in the selpuchre that passes for the current academic client, but you and I and others who matter shall know. We live in such exciting times! Wish me well! S. L. Kermit |
| go sox!
-a disinterested observer of spectacle |
| I am glad to see that felicity and harmonic balance have restored to the wa of the Rosenbaumischerwelt. These arrant gallopers X, faux-Y and Z have certainly disgraced themselves and their alleged peers, only to have our collective reputation resuscitated by the valiant efforts of the imaginary and self-instantiated Herr Rosenbaum his own self.
If Ben did not exist, as the old saying goes, it would be necessary to subrogate him. Yours in qat, Y, the real Y |
| The funny thing is, y'all think this is all me, but actually I really *did* just wander back into this topic and find all these posts. I know who's behind two of these masks... but I'm mystified about the others...
Terry, I actually have always wanted to try qat. Peasants in Yemen get up at 6 am, work in the qat fields until 2 pm, and then knock off for the day to attend qat parties for 4-6 hours, which involve chewing qat "to sharpen the intellect" and then having fast-paced, poetical, passionate, intellectual conversations. Kind of like an entire third-world country having a continuous, unending science fiction convention. |
| I didn't know Benjamin did drugs... |
| This is like some sort of surreal Jeff Vandermeer story. |
| Gentlemen and Ladies!
Welcome to my topic. I feel that I have been a terrible host. Little did I realize that an academic and autodidactic Ragnarok of such proportions was underway. S.L., it's so wonderful to know that you're alive and well somewhere (if you don't mind my saying so, and I know you're much more experienced in these matters than I, you should be careful about mentioning things like the satellite being about to go past the horizon, because posts on this forum are datestamped and so it might allow people to narrow down your longitude. There is also an IP address stamp; I hope you're taking appropriate precautions and that Osmir is still available to handle the computer end of things). X, the discussion of how the manuscript was found as given on the Strange Horizons site was (I think it is safe to say now) a fiction, designed to obscure how the manuscript actually came to us, which, as I am sure you understand, we are not really at liberty to disclose. Dr. Topp, Y, Y, and Zzz, thanks for your remarks. S.L. has a rather blunt way of putting things, and I don't wish you to be discomfited by his critique of the academic establishment -- you must admit that, put in milder terms, it does have a certain veracity. However, I think we can agree that there are two discussions to be had: one about the existential situation of the speaker in relation to the content (viz., what would it take to be willing to sacrifice the actual physical body for the text, in the ways S.L. has described), and the other with regard to the metaphysical relations of text and authorship. Myself, I have always held to the contrarian view that, while the author is certainly an illusion (and Benjamin Rosenbaum perhaps most of all, cf. "Biographical Notes to 'A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes' by Benjamin Rosenbaum" by Benjamin Rosenbaum, forthcoming in All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories this Sunday), the reader is a further illusion, constituted by the text in the act of reading; in moments between readings, what exists is a kind of proto-reader or meta-reader, a potentiality of readership, which accrues fundamental reality only insofar as it self-authors a provisional narrative of self-readership. Mmm, qat... |
| That propense inclination which is for very wise purposes implanted in the one sex for the other, is not only necessary for the continuance of the human species; but is, at the same time, when govern'd and directed by virtue and religion, productive not only of corporeal delight, but of the most rational felicity.
The most rational felicity indeed, oh how you scholars have ignored the virtue we chaps devoured in Oxford! It was oh so very good and oh so very splendid, that our corporeal delights when it came to the bible were sated, and it was upon these texts we were met with a richness which pornography could never meet--not today's pornography, mind you, but those of the 18th century which are oh so very racy, like the 8 Cuckolds of Maidenhead. Oh, did I giggle at that, yes I did. And here you are, giggling like school girls, like we did in Anthropology 101 when the professor revealed to us that the ice man was found with no genitals. I bet that gives you gentlemen a real hoot, doesn't it? And I also guess it allows you to neglect the virtual holes in Benjamin's story, discontinuing the story of how the Sun God was tamed with the Ten Commandments to obey one God, his God. Shame on all of you, so-called Scholars, I slap you in the face with my white glove, only to discard it for it would now be covered in soot. Good day, Gentlemen. Sincerely yours, Loring Fenton Hill |
| Seeing as Professor Kermit has descended into raging profanity, totally ignoring the topic at hand, I no longer see any need on my part to particpate in this discussion and gladly leave the field for those more interested than I in bemiring battles of otiose expletives.
Z. Topp |
| Where did X go??? |
| Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo (Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo) (doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo) (doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo) (doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo) -Doo |
| I feel it important to declare at this juncture that Y and Y are not in fact the same individual. I realize that Y Y in fact violates some basic characteristics of number theory, but since we have descended into the nether bolgias of textual space here thanks to the 'efforts' of some of my esteemed 'colleagues', who may all in fact be incarnations of Messer.s Kermit and/or Rosenbaum, or possibly even the ill-fated Mr. Trimm, or even manifestations of the fee verte which I am currently imbibing, but none of that should be confused with the fact that I am not myself, nor, in fact, is Y myself.
Sincerely, Y |
| What the bloody 'ell are you people going on about?
Right, right. Nothing happening here. Move along, then. I'm sure Mr. Rosenbaum has better things to do, me buckos... 'Ere, and watch that language--this isn't Bucking'am-fluking-Palace, izzit? |
| Oh, and Zzzzz, whoever you are, you put me to sleep. I have no time for people who hide behind fake identities or psuedonymous publication. Everything I do is right out there in the open for anyone to see. I don't know how you know about Uzbekistan, but when I found out who told you, I will cut off all your communication with those sources. You can't follow me around that way. So fuck you too.
Sincerely, S. L. Kermit |
| Well excuse me, Doctor Topp. Nice way to try to establish your supremacy here. What an appropriate name -- Can you Topp this? Do you like it on Topp? Who's Topp bit--er, dog?
I really don't have time to stoop, or squat, in your case, to these kind of academic pissing contests. You don't see me throwing around my advanced degrees, and I can guaranfuckingtee you they're better than yours, because credentials don't mean shit. Only the work itself matters. God, I'm sick to death of you ivory tower intellectuals who can't get your fingers dirty out in the field telling the last handful of us real scholars about "standards of academic discourse." Have you ever had to talk your past a Hezzbollah checkpoint with a rare, ill-fitting scroll (a more complete version of the Qumran text of Enoch, surely the most important apocryphic work of the Second Temple period, a translation of which still has yet to see the light of day because of academic politics) tucked uncomfortably into a dust-dry body cavity? I doubt it. Have you ever had to convince, on a mountain pass at midnight in the freezing sleet, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, and I swear there was never a nastier Napolean-sized son of a bitch with more grade-A armament in his attitude, and this was just during his training in Afghanistan, when he was still trying to prove he was tough enough to serve bin Laden, I say, have you ever tried to convince someone like that the rare Nestorian engraving you were carrying was nothing more than your auntie's recipe for chicken soup? I doubt it even more. On that ocassion, it was my life or the text, hanging in the balance, and I counted my life more valuable only to the extent that it was needed to rescue the text. But no, you and your tenured cohorts sit in comfortable offices surrounded by glue-bound books rolled off printing presses by the thousands and lined up in neat little rows behind glass in their barrister cases while sipping espresso from the new Rancilio Silvia sitting on your desk corners, dipping your pinkies in the creme and gushing over froth before bitching about your latest committee assignments and the changes in your university healthcare plan and then approving your latest rehashing of old texts for the inbred system of peer review journals that I wouldn't wipe my ass with if all I had left as an alternative was poison ivy. I would spit on all of you fake scholars, not least of which for the way you conspire to keep honest research, like that I've conducted, and brought to light with the assistance of people, like Mr. Rosenbaum, who can't be blackmailed by the petty Stalins of the ivy-covered halls of scholarshop, out of the, where was I, oh, yes, out of the view of the public who deserves to know the capital T Truth about these things and not the comforting saccharine pablum that gets passed off on them instead. The whole lot of you are a bunch of intellectual chimpanzees picking the nits off nits, except it's an insult to compare you to our primate cousins, who can at least use sticks to get termites out of stumps to feed themselves, instead of living parasitically off taxes and the tuition of students who, in turn, aren't taught anything useful on either a physical or spiritual level. When you've done real scholarship, research that matters, come back and lecture me on standards of academic discourse. Until then, shove another biscotti in your pie hole and get out of the way of giants who don't want you on their shoulders. I am out of here. The satellite will be dropping over the horizon soon and I'll lose my internet connection for a couple hours. Besides, I have real scholarship to do. S. L. Kermit |
| Zzzzz,
Exercises in futility are themselves at the essential root of our humanity, as Derridadaist principles teach us. As Rosenbaum's work demonstrates, the individual work of fiction lends itself to, as you point out so convincingly, differing egress and ingress depending on constituting socio-cultural milieus, making the work of fiction itself immaterial, as what is important are the individual interpretations, the way in which the work is infinitely recreated in the intertextual reading experience in the vast post-colonial readership, so far removed from hegemony. While admitting this essential futility (or perhaps more precisely, indeterminancy of meaning), I must beg to differ with my esteemed colleague Dr. Topp in her estimation that Rosenbaum himself is a hoax. As Stanley Fish has so conclusively shown, it is the reader in the text who creates the text; Rosenbaum has a wider readership of fans who believe in him, ergo, Rosenbaum exists and is not a hoax. Affectedly, Y |
| S.L.K.,
I will ignore the reference to my rebuttal as totally uncultured and below the standards of academic discourse. And the fact remains that you have provided no conclusive evidence for the existence of this Benjamin Rosenbaum other than your own eyewitness account. I could as easily say that I saw him in Hinterhopfingen. Sincerely, Dr. Zelda Topp |
| Kermie, buddy, chill out, okay, dude. We were all just trying to have a little fun here.
Love your work. Can't wait to hear what comes back from Uzbekistan. Zzzzz |
| Mr. Topp,
You have no clue as to my recent tribulations or motivations, and your suggestion that I intended to perpetrate a hoax is the abomination of honest scholarship which all my career has strived and stood for. As for the rest of it, I can only say that I have chewed quat with Mr. Rosenbaum during his last sojourn in Quatar and he did not appear to me to be at that time a hoax. In short, fuck you. Right up your rebuttal, if you prefer. Sincerely, S. L. Kermit |
| Y,
I believe your post more truly arises from Dadaist principles, or perhaps Derridadaist principles, as it were, and represents a vast assault on, if I may make so bold as to suggest, the bilge-un-romanen of someone's Intellectual Fortress of Solitude, where the crennelations make a gap-toothed grin in the intellectual likeness of Mr. A. E. Nuemann and the true access of entry is the sapper's or the spy's, that is to say through the back door or bottom of the garderobe, an ingress by way of the egress, whereas this subject demands the utmost seriousness and clarity of expression in purpose in order to prevent the unintentioned leading astray of those who show a more elevated and proper regard for the activity of constructing meaning from texts as they exist in a larger social, historical, political, and personal context, without which social interaction, such as we practice here--and I use "practice" advisedly with the implication that we all might, and might benefit immesurably were we to, become better at it--would devolve into an exercise in futility instead of that humility which is at the essential root of our humanity. In short, you owe the distinguished Mr. Rosenbaum an immediate and abject apology. Or, perhaps, a comfy pillow and a pleasant beverage. Depending on his level of amusement. Irrascibly, Zzzzz |
| There is obviously a hoax being perpetrated here, although whether it is on the part of Mr. Rosenbaum or Mr. Kermit cannot be determined conclusively. In the letter prefacing the original "Book of Jashar," Mr. Rosenbaum claimed (and I quote), "Professor Kermit became increasingly embittered and erratic. The last time he called me, shortly before his troubling and inexplicable disappearance, he accused a nameless conspiracy of the 'heirs of Mezipatheh' of hindering our work's acceptance."
And yet here is this same Professor Kermit posting to Mr. Rosenbaum's topic? After a mysterious disappearance? Obviously, the disappearance was a hoax in order to get a piece of very questionable scholarship published. I would like to respectfully suggest that this so-called fiction author, "Benjamin Rosenbaum" is also a hoax, an imaginary creation from the fevered brain of a frustrated academic. Look at the textual evidence: it is the tribe of Benjamin from which Jonathan the upright is said to claim descent, and the document in question was published in a fiction magazine entitled "Strange Horizons." Certainly there may be other possible explanations of these inconsistencies and coincidences, and I look forward to Professor Kermit's rebuttal. Sincerely, Z. Topp Author of Living Las Vegas in Modern Literature: Illusion and Fictional Chicanery |
| I feel compelled to point out that any rational critique of both "Book of Jashar" and of X's peculiarly compelling attack on the translator's efforts in connexion thereto must of necessity arise from Derridaist principles, or it will be invalidated by the textual context space qua perception map with which the cauldron of experience embraced by the Informed Reader naturally and unselfconsciously informs the process. Such ready and considered efforts will doubtless contribute mightily to a deconstructive simplification of the issues to hand so that the, dies irae, the general viewership of these august letters pages would then be in a prepared position to make a vast assault upon the bastions of Mr. Rosenbaum's intellectual fortress, scaling even the towering heights of his bildungsromanen-laced ego-matrix for the general benefit.
But of course, this would all be obvious even to the most casual lay reader. Sincerely, Y |
| Hello, X.
Or rather the spot marked with X. But is it the X of the treasure scratched on the pirate's map, or the crossed-out X of negation, or the martyr's X of Christendom, or the X in triple-X, the X of sex, or is it one and all at the same time? Who knows, for you are nameless and you keep your purposes hidden. You asked if the "Book of Jashar" was fact or fiction. Such distinctions are meaningless when it comes to scripture. There is the small "t" truth of fact, and the large "T" Truth of revelation, and those who go to scriptures for the former instead of the latter do not have eyes to see, nor ears to hear, but are blind and deaf to the divine meaning written down in plain sight. I am not speaking on behalf of my co-translator, who is perfectly capable of speaking for himself in this and in all instances, but would I encourage you, Mr. X, Mr. Unknown Variable, to read Jashar for the Truth that is contained therein and leave such concerns as petty truth to the corporate factmongers and data hucksters who prosper in these too, too often Truthless times. Don't go to scripture chasing after truth the way little dogs chase after cars -- you're too likely to be run over on the road to enlightenment and may not recover. Sincerely yours, in all good will, with only the best wishes, S. L. Kermit |
| Ben already is a superhero. He has the cape and the tights.
Paul |
| Benjamin,
I would like to introduce myself, but unfortunately cannot at this time. I came across some of your material and have a question? I read your article on Jashar and I would like to know if the way the book was found (as stated in the article) was a true story? Or was it written as fiction? I believe it may have a much greater impact with the current world affairs than one might realize (in a masked sort of way). I just need to find out how the material was discovered before I discuss any additional information. You just might end up being the super hero that you have always craved! Sincerely, X |
| Cool. :-) |
| Ben, your story, "The Orange," was linked to at Lit Haven:
http://www.lithaven.com/ The first issue has launched. |
| Hey, how spiffy, people have actually been posting here! Hi Ray, Terry, Jaime & erin! Thanks for your kind words.
I like "tremedously" -- it sounds related to "tremble" and "immediate". I enjoy your typo tremblediately. |
| Hi Ben,
I read "Start the Clock" in F&SF; and thought it to be the best of the three shorts in the issue, hands down. Bought the mag because it had your name on it (I buy F&SF; when Charlie's in print too). I also enjoyed "Valley of the Giants" (though I read that when it was posted at the OWW). It's refreshing to read creative, well crafted fiction from a fellow OWW'er. Keep it up! Ray W. |
| Whee-oo! Benjamin ROOLS!
8^D |
| Benjamin:
In this month's Locus, you're described as "an emerging prodigy of short fiction." That's pretty spiffy. |
| I like your writing so much, in fact, that I failed to proofread my comment. (insert stupid blushing face here.)
Tremendously. ~ erin - boston, MA |
| I enjoy your writing tremedously. Keep up the good work.
~erin - boston, MA |
| Okay, so I am actually updating my blog & website once again.
So you need to go there for your cute Aviva soundbite fix, etc. :-) |
| Ha ha! My strategy of whining on [The Future of the Rumor Mill] is working! :-)
Hi Patrick! Thanks Lori -- I get your response to the novel at [Blue Heaven], and more response here too? Whee! |
| Just thought I'd post here so you didn't feel lonely. |
| BTW, congratulations on finishing a kick-ass novel.
In--um--in case you're still looking for a response.... :-) |
| nyaa nyaa, I'm the voice of Paa-ul, I'm the voice of Paa-ul. |
| You are so NOT the voice of me.
I would have posted sooner, but your topic is a wasteland and impossible to find. :) Paul |
| From an interview with Gordon Van Gelder in IROSF
(free account signup required to see it): "I can't tell what the post-baby boomer writers are about yet, but I think somebody's going to sit down and look at Ben Rosenbaum stories, and Jonathan Lethem's, and Charlie Finlay's and Alex Irvine's, and they're going to put it together and figure what they're about, what their big themes are in the same sense that the Lost Generation had big themes." http://www.irosf.com/q/zine/article/10042 Dude. :-) |
| Um, that was me. |
| I wrote the words "The End" for the very first time at the end of a novel this morning.
:-) "The Library of Souls", by Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert, ~106,000 words |
| Oops, the fund drive link is wrong. It should go here:
April Fund Drive>/a> http://www.strangehorizons.com/index.pl?Contents=/support/support.shtml |
| [Strange Horizons] is not merely one of the finest venues for online speculative fiction -- nay, for online fiction of any kind; it is not merely the Citidel of [Notorious Style Monkeys], the romping-ground of fantasists, fabulists, and fictioneers; not merely does it publish what I think is the best poetry in the spec fic world, and countless lovely reviews and articles besides; it was also, to my knowledge, the first bold experiment -- since imitated, never so successfully -- in "museum-model" speculative fiction.
Since 2000, its tireless corps of volunteers have been buying fiction at professional rates, showering it with throrough and loving editorial guidance (if my own experience is any guide), and giving it away to the public every monday for free, on their lovely, well-laid-out website. And poetry and articles and art too. Other than an occasional announced holiday -- one week at Christmastime, I think -- they have never missed a Monday. The museum-model relies on donors. They're having their twice-yearly fund drive now. They're a tax-deductible 501c3. They don't have subscriptions, they don't bug their authors to support them (the editorial department has no idea who's donated). Instead they solicit donations from the public, like public radio in the US, except without the annoying telethons. But can do get prizes, donated by such folks as the SH authors (for instance, you could get a signed and hand-illustrated copy of my Other Cities collection, though that doesn't seem to have made it onto the prize list yet). Plus you get a spiffy membership card for $25, t-shirt or coffee mug for $50, etc. April Fund Drive Consider supporting the flourishing of speculative fiction in the capable hands and feet of the Monkeys of Style. (Cross-posting this elsewhere on the RM) |
| Your groceries were always famous, dude. Tempest |
| How totally cool! (The groceries.) Lori |
| I never said thanks to Terry for the Google help and praise.
Thanks Terry! And I didn't do anything -- it fixed itself. I think Google was rebuilding its cache. |
| ...and now my groceries are famous. |
| Very flattering review of my Other Cities collection in Tangent. |
| Some friends of ours were over last night and Aviva announced to them, "you should babysit me."
"Okay," they said. "You should babysit me on Friday, because it's my Mommy's birthday." I wasn't there. Esther, who was flabbergasted, broke in to protest that it was short notice, etc., etc. Under the influence of Aviva's steely gaze (I imagine), however, the guests acquiesced. So now we have a babysitter for Friday. The girl is three. Sheesh. |
| Thanks for pointing it out, Simon. I posted my thoughts on "Droplet" and writing erotica.
Doug, you may have contributed more than you think to the dialogue you're talking about, even without formally publishing; the world is small, society is surprisingly interconnected, and memes travel fast. |
| Hey Ben, discussion of your story "Droplet" has popped up in Great and Useless Debates:
http://www.speculations.com/rumormill/index.php?t=309&show;_all_topics=0 Simon Owens |
| Ben
Your clarity of expression and thought are daunting if not purely inspirational. I have found my usual spontaneous dribble unbefitting and thus have not responded. Actually, I have written several responses but ultimately could not bring myself to click the Post-this-message box. This may sound as if I am conflicted somehow, but much to the contrary, I have resolved so much of what bothered me in the past. When I first came to Speculations I had a vague idea that fiction writers might help me articulat....
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| Maybe he's le homme-san. Paul Melko |
| non, mon cher, TU es le homme! |
| Cool! You're the man. La homme. Whatever it is or would be. Charlie Finlay |
| It looks like I'm going to be translated soon into Japanese (Hayakawa SF) and Croatian (Futura). I'll post in the Ego Shelf when I actually get a contract or check... |
| *Now* I go check to see if google will get me your site--you must have fixed the problem because your site's the first three or more hits. Plus I see it's got an update of today's date.
Never mind. Glad you fixed it! And hey, BTW, I've been reading the Feb. 04 issue of Locus and I see they heaped praise on a story of yours--sorry I can't remember which, the mag's downstairs right now. Anyway, I just thought, well of course! That's our Ben! |
| Ben, did you check your Metafiles? That's the stuff the search engines look for. It's just a list of all the key words and phrases that will guide people who might be interested in your site, the ones they might type into a search engine. Maybe they got accidentally deleted somehow.
Here, here's the Meta tags at the top of my Index.htm page (replacing the actual greater than and less than brackets with square ones): [html] [head] [meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"] [meta name="Description" content="Terry Hickman's personal web site about writing, science fiction, indie and industrial rock & roll. nine inch nails, bright eyes, tool, desaparecidos"] [meta name="Keywords" content="bright eyes, nine inch nails, kmfdm, tool, desaparecidos, saddle creek records, science fiction, writing, tools for writers, links for writers, Terry Hickman"] [title]3 outside the skinny[/title] [/head] |
| Yikes -- that's weird -- my site, which is to say, the site for Benjamin Rosenbaum, has fallen off of Google entirely. I mean, when you search for "Benjamin Rosenbaum", on Google, it doesn't come up at all, where previously it was one of the first hits. Yikes! I did just reorganize the first page a little -- but why would that affect it?
Now would be a good time for y'all to link to Benjamin Rosenbaum in your blogs, y'know, just to kind of refresh Google's memory... :-) |
| I have this bad habit of posting long comments on peoples' older journal entries. No one will ever read them.
I wrote a little essay in a comment on an old page of Heather's journal. So y'know. Doug, you'd find it interesting, I think. |
| Sorry for my languor in replying... much going on.
Great to hear that you're grooving with your daughter and with the indomitable Dominic and Cheyenne, Doug. I'd love to meet them some day. I think you did avoid viciousness, and having extreme views can be useful in stirring things up -- you certainly made me rethink a lot of assumptions. Nor do I think everyone rejected your message -- though many were annoyed, provoked, or confused by it. Haven't seen the passion. It sounds pretty gruesome. It also sounds like an authentic piece of religious expression. The Rabbi of my synagogue wrote about it in our newsletter -- he said he'd just reread the New Testament preparatory to seeing it and that the movie may be pretty hard on the Jewish temple establishment, but the New Testament is pretty damn hard on them too, and the movie is not meant to be a documentary but rather an interpretation of scripture. Sounds reasonable to me. Of course, that doesn't mean it's not a scary movie for a Jew to watch -- given all the expressions reverence for the Passion has taken over the centuries -- one of which is the pogrom, which used to be a vibrant if murderous part of the Easter ritual of many communities. Certainly I doubt that Gibson's Passion has either any intention, or will have any result, comparable to that. But like many people, he's stumbled into a minefield of other people's history and expectations and feelings. I wouldn't mind seeing the movie sometime, and I'd expect to be upset by it. I'd insist on both Gibson's right to make such a movie, and my right to be frightened by it. Good to have you back in the joint, Year Ray (why Year Ray?)... |
| Ben BEN ... My Ben
You know... we were never apart (though we've yet to meet).
I saw "The passion of Christ" tonite. I wonder what its like to a beautiful person like yourself. I've followed in your footsteps since we spoke. Living with my daughter and the twins. Seems we just flushed 10 years of adolescent angst and began where we left off when we were the inseparable Father/Daughter Duo. Dominic and Cheyenne are 6 years old now and he is my teacher/guru/griot. How's your kid? Hope to read something insp....
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| Hey Doug! Great to have your email... I'll drop you a line. |
| Good Brother Ben;
Missed you much. Hope to make contact after my extended hiatus. DCL devsgrandma1 at aol.com |
| Wish you could post a sound file of that, Ben. :) Terry |
| This weekend, in the middle of me telling her a story, Aviva jumped up and started leaping around from one foot to the other, holding her arms straight up in the air and singing, "I love this story SO MUCH! I love this story SO MUCH!" ["ich freue mi SO ueber daem Gschicht!"]
That's the reaction we're looking for in our readers, yes? |
| Since Noah doesn't get nearly as much screen time as his big sister, I should note that he is lifting up his head nowadays and gazing around with the most intense expression of interest and wonder at the things of the world, before settling his head back to nestle against one's chest with a delighted, beatific little smirk. |
| Aviva sounds like the godchild of Jonathan Carroll. She's going to amaze us all when she starts writing stories. Sean K |
| Ben, I can only wish to be as handsome as you when I have great-grandchildren.
I won't be at Wiscon. It's the weekend after we get back from the Virgin Islands, and I won't be able to get the time off from work. Jae |
| I'm going to Wiscon....
*dances* Maybe this means I will finally get to meet some of you-all I've missed meeting. |