Will they or won't they?

The clock continues to tick down on the contract negotiations between Huron State and the faculty union. (More here and here).

It doesn't directly affect Yours Truly, since I'm "represented", if that's the word, by a different union which shows little ability or inclination to negotiate aggressively. But if the *real* faculty (i.e., the ones with year-to-year job security and salaries large enough to live on) go on strike, I'll probably be expected to cross the picket lines and fill their slots in the schedule.

I suspect that, indirectly, I will lose, whoever wins. Any gains the "real faculty" union makes, the university administration will probably turn around and take right out of my hide, since I'm not in a position to fight back. The administration, meanwhile seeks to further its long-term strategy of eliminating professional, long-term faculty jobs in favor of cheap, disposable temporary lecturer slots. (See this PowerPoint presentation.) That way they can afford more grandiose, palatial mansions and double-digit raises and bonuses for administrators.

Meanwhile, the students,... ah, but who gives a cr*p about them?

Professorial bias... the flip side

Carlos may find this story interesting. Apparently the University of Montana has, after a procedural tussle involving its Board of Regents, its President, and a grievance committee, agreed to permit Robert G. Natelson, a politically conservative law professor and sometime gubernatorial candidate, to teach a course in constitutional law. (More here.) The University had apparently previously refused to permit him to teach the course even when there were vacant sections.

PSSSSSSHHHH.... Take THAT, you pesky yellow buggers!

I'm not RefGrunting tonight, but if I were, I would have had an unusual opportunity to add "eradicate nest of yellowjackets from underside of public bench outside library door" to my laconic list of accomplishments. It's not part of the job description, but I figured it would be a kindness to the next person to sit on the bench.

Never a dull moment.

The Village

I'm inclined to agree with Fiend's assessment that The Village is not Shyamalan's best work. It starts out promisingly enough, with a village full of folks in 19th-century dress living in what appears to be splendid rural isolation -- splendid, that is, except for the lack of medical facilities which dooms the sick and injured to lingering, painful deaths, and the eerie, menacing, bestial howls that emanate from the surrounding forest. As the film begins, a child is buried beneath a gravestone bearing the date 1897. We find out, soon enough, that the village exists in isolation largely because of the threat posed by "Those We Do Not Speak Of", the inhabitants of the surrounding forest, whom the villagers ward away with watchtowers, torches, and prominent display of the "Safe Color". We are told that there is a truce by which the villagers stay out of the forest and "Those We Do Not Speak Of" stay out of the village. But how long will the truce last? And just what are the villagers trying to keep out, anyway?

I won't give away the Big Twist(TM) in the story, but it's there, and in retrospect, it creates holes in the plot and background of the film. For example, why the emphasis on the "Bad Color" and its effect on "Those We Do Not Speak Of"? Is this part of some grand metaphorical statement about the traditional cultural associations of said color, or is it just an excuse for the director to use sudden, bright splashes of it for dramatic visual effect? Should we also be thinking about the cultural associations of the "Safe Color"? Just how big an area is enclosed around the village and guarded by watchtowers, anyway? An agricultural life demands a lot of open space, and the raising of the livestock seen in the film would require even more open pastureland. What about that gravestone dated 1897, anyway?

Shyamalan doesn't quite play fair with the viewer all the time, either. (I have in mind particularly the sudden and previously-un-hinted-at revelation, at one point in the film, of a certain item having being kept under a certain set of floorboards for no plausible reason whatsoever.)

Walking into the theater, I wondered how Shyamalan would manage to make a movie set in the old-New-England territory of Lovecraft and Hawthorne without falling under the influence of those two giants. He managed to do so, but at the risk of introducing a plot twist that will have some viewers rolling their eyes, and at the risk of balancing a very heavily metaphorical story on a rather flimsy premise. Still, the movie's enjoyable, has some gorgeous photography and a few genuinely scareworthy moments, and will keep those who enjoy intellectual plot-puzzles guessing just what's going on through most of the picture.

Congratulations to Huron State...

It's officially a "Best Midwesern College for 2005" [sic].

(Note: the page linked to changes on a daily basis, so if you're looking at this after 8/25, it's not what I referred to.)

Way, WAY up North...

I just returned late yesterday from one of the most wonderful roadtrips I've ever taken. Up to Ottawa, north of the border and east almost to the dangerous territory of the fearsome Francophones. Once again the car rental company I dealt with before came through with a reasonable rate (so, once again, fie on these folks!), and, thanks to the exchange rate between US and Canadian dollars, the rate I was charged for a couple of nights' hotel accomodation felt like a bargain.

Once there, I was privileged to meet up with the one, the only, the incomparable "Fiend", who had agreed to act as tour guide and cultural interpreter for this clueless USian. Despite www.weather.ca's dour predictions of clouds and a 20% chance of rain, we had a beautiful day in which to walk around and see some of the sights of the Parliament Hill area. The changing of the red-clad guards is an impressive spectacle, and I couldn't help but notice that the relatively open layout of the Canadian Parliament buildings, with their traditionally English/European architecture, seems much more friendly and less oppressive than the pumped-up faux Imperial Roman pretentiousness of the US Capitol building. And their location on a bluff overlooking the Ottawa River surely makes them one of the most photogenic capitol locations anywhere in the world.

Of equal importance: the "Cat House" is no longer a mystery to me.

The National Gallery and the Museum of Civilization turned out to be well worth the time spent to tour them, and I can favorably recommend both the Bangkok Thai Garden Restaurant and the Sweetgrass Aboriginal Bistro. At the former, a rather motherly waitress insisted on adjusting our napkins properly before bringing us some a lunch that was fairly mild by the typical standards of Thai restaurants. (Fiend informs me that I could have specified a fierier blend). The Sweetwater allows the curious to sample modern culinary interpretations of various foods that were available to native/aboriginal Americans, such as rabbit sausage, buffalo steaks, and various kinds of fish found in north American waters. (Vegetarians will find the pickings rather slim, unfortunately). It's a small place, and didn't seem too heavily patronized on a Saturday evening, but it's worth exploring for those with any degree of culinary curiosity. To his credit, the waiter was knowledgeable about the various spiritual effects attributed to the herbal teas on the menu, but didn't insist that customers believe in them.

Then off to see M. Night Shyamalan's latest effort, The Village, about which I'll write a bit more later.

The trip back was uneventful, except for one minor problem. I had failed to remember that the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit is a toll bridge, and as I had managed to rid myself of practically all my cash currency before returning, I didn't have the wherewithall to get through the US-side tollbooth without resorting to a credit card. Nope, no credit-cards accepted. Cash only. The rude and foul-mouthed toll attendant directed me to the "cops" (i.e., customs officials) at the side of the toll area. They, in turn, directed me to the nearby duty-free shop and its ATM. Unfortunately, I have never bothered to establish a PIN number for ATM withdrawals using a credit card, and the credit-card service rep was rather vague about how long it would take to activate one for a cash withdrawal.

At this point, I began to wonder whether I would have to spend the rest of my life as a ward of the toll authority, sleeping in my imprisoned rental car and begging passersby for handouts until I could muster up the $2.75 in cash that I needed to buy my freedom.

The credit-card person had said that they could only authorize creating a PIN number for the card if I called from my home telephone number. Fortunately, my home phone number is my cell phone, which was at that moment plugged into the car dashboard to charge up. So I headed back to the car to get it. However, when the guys at customs saw me go to my car and then back toward the duty-free store, they intervened and told me to just head out through a specified toll gate where, said they, the toll-taker would make "other arrangements". I attribute this to their wish to clear my car out of their rather cramped parking area, rather than to unalloyed charity, but I still appreciate it.

All this for a measly $2.75.

And so back home, where the cats had made only minor messes in my absence, and, later this afternoon, back to work. But with some wonderful memories of a wonderful weekend.

(Note to Limes, W.Y., "Nonsense", and any other Ottawans who might have been interested in meeting up for lunch and conversation: sorry the scheduling didn't work out, but I wouldn't mind meeting you'all on some future trip, should the opportunity arise.)

The Visitation

Last weekend's Parental Visitation was peaceable and even enjoyable. They arrived on Friday evening. I gave them the Deluxe Guided Tour of Y-Town, including the hallowed halls of the World's Last Hudson Dealership, also known as the Automotive Heritage Museum. The museum's abundance of locally-produced Corvairs elicited the predictable sour comments about Ralph Nader, and someone got their picture taken as if they were about to roar off down a stock-car track in this beautiful machine. Sadly, despite Preston Tucker's onetime residence in Y-town, the only Tucker Torpedo in the museum collection is a fiberglass replica used in the 1988 movie.

Since no one was willing to express a preference about what restaurant to go to, I made an Executive Decision that sushi was to be the Order of the Day. All hail the mighty Wasabi! Fortunately, a certain Visitant remembered her previous experience, and did not mistake the wasabi for guacamole.

Saturday was devoted to visiting the Henry Ford Museum over in Dearborn, which houses among other things the only surviving Dymaxion House, yet more automobiles including the infamous limousine in which John F. Kennedy was riding when he was assassinated, and an impressive ex-C&O Allegheny and other stuffed-and-mounted relics of the steam era. Just barely visible to the left in the Allegheny photograph is part of the diminutive DeWitt Clinton, one of the first locomotives ever constructed on this side of the pond. Or, at any rate, a reproduction constructed from "fragments" of the original, according to the sign. It makes quite a contrast to the monstrous articulated that looms over it like one of its namesake mountain ridges.

Then onward, onward to The Village, with its quaint architecture, eccentric costumes and pervasive sense of fresh-scrubbed cleanliness. No, no, not that Village! This one!

I enjoyed the idyllicly preserved historic houses in the Village, especially those that had some connection to times and places in American history in which I have a particular interest. (Colonial New England, or the antebellum South, for example!). It was amusing to ride around in sputtering Model T's and horsedrawn omnibuses and chat about boilers and steam pressure with the stoker on the resident steamboat, but anyone who knows me will know what part of the Village attracted my fondest attention. I was pleasantly surprised to find an unexpected Upper Peninsula connection here: The "Torch Lake", a former Calumet & Hecla Mining Co. locomotive, was quietly simmering away on one of the roundhouse tracks. I didn't know there were any Mason Bogies still in existence, let alone still steaming on a daily basis! The Edison, a tiny 4-4-0 type, was pulling the train at the time I was there, but judging from the way it spun its drivers on the rain-dampened rails and audibly struggled to haul the short passenger train up the grade behind the Stephen Foster house, they might have been better off using the heavier, six-drivered mining locomotive.

When Pablo visited earlier this summer, he and I drove up to Frankenmuth, Michigan's "little Bavaria". On the way, we drove past something billing itself as the World's Largest Christmas Store. I distinctly remember saying "My mother must never find out about this place." So when she mentioned driving up to Frankenmuth on Sunday, I considered taking a roundabout route that would avoid the cursed spot.

Unfortunately, I did not take into account her network of informers... er, friends... one of whom, upon hearing that I lived in southeastern Michigan, happily informed her that if she was coming up here, she just HAD to visit the World's Largest Christmas Store. So. Christmas Store it was. Eight acres of colored lights and tinsel. Plastic trees in both green and white, not to mention "pre-lit" and fiber optics. Fiberglass Nativities. Dancing Santas. Dancing Irish Santas. Italian Santas. Polish, German, Mexican, cowboy, Laplander, not to mention black Kwanzaa Santas. Policeman, doctor, and "hippie" Santas. Dentist Santas. Decapitated Santas.

The horror. The horror.

Three hours later, we finally made it to Frankenmuth for a belated lunch. Sadly, we missed Brave Combo's appearance at the Summer Music Festival. As usual, I didn't find out about it until the day after. (Carlos may wish to note thisSimpsons connection.)

Sunday evening's outing to the Gandy Dancer, a more traditional seafood restaurant where they actually cook the fish, met with more enthusiasm than the prior exercise in piscatory gastronomy. The fact that the restaurant is located in a former railroad depot is entirely coincidence, of course, and had nothing to do with me recommending it.

JibJab jibber-jabber

I can't believe I missed this story when it first came out over a week ago! But, on the principle that late is better than never, here goes.

Most people who read this blog have probably seen JibJab's cartoon in which an animated George W. Bush and John Kerry trade musical insults to the tune of "This Land Is Your Land." It's amusing if a bit corny. Unfortunately, the copyright to the song, 64 years after it was written by sometime leftist, labor agitator, and dustbowl troubadour Woody Guthrie, is held by a conglomerate called The Richmond Group, which has reportedly threatened to file suit against JibJab's use of the song. (News stories here, here, here. See also the EFF's statement on JibJab's behalf here.) Says a Richmond Group corporate flunkie: "This puts a completely different spin on the song.... The damage to the song is huge."

Damage? Uh, right. Surely Woody Guthrie, that devoutly apolitical figure, who never said anything satirical or critical about anyone, would never have dreamed of his songs having anything do with ... gasp ... POLITICS!

Did I hear somebody ask, what was Woody Guthrie's opinion on copyright protection? Well, here's the phrase he used to send out with copies of his lyrics in the late 1930's in lieu of a standard copyright statement:

This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.

And as for the tune, well, that comes from a gospel song that dates back at least ten years before Guthrie lifted it from a Carter Family album! (See EFF comment here, with sound clip for proof.) This is a common practice in folk music, and has been so for centuries, until corporate executives got it into their head that they could lock tunes up in their private vaults and exercise monopoly control over them.

Unfortunately, neither historical precedent, common sense, nor the explicit wishes of the artists themselves, seem to matter much to the greed-crazed, power-tripping perpetual-intellectual-property barons of the twenty-first century. But just this once, there may be hope that the Richmond Group's legal threats will go down in ignominious flames of scorn.

A different kind of paperless society?

This is not exactly breaking news, but it's weird enough to warrant a link: Author announces mortal work of art. Other commentary here, here, here. From the Seattle Times:

... Some writers are plagued with the worry that publication of their work will hurt others, but in the case of New York author Shelley Jackson the question is moot: She knows her work will hurt people. That's because Jackson is publishing her latest story on the backs, legs, arms, necks and feet of eager volunteers — in the form of single-word tattoos....

After evaluating applicants' personal statements, Jackson assigns the words one at a time, in the order of the story, and including any adjacent punctuation marks. Accepted parties must acquire and pay for the tattoos on their own, sending a photo to Jackson as proof. The full text will not be published anywhere else, even in summary. Only participants, sworn to secrecy, will be told the story in its entirety, and only after all the tattoos have been etched in ink....

"Participants must accept the word they are given, but they may choose the site of their tattoo, with the exception of words naming specific body parts, which may be anywhere but the body part named."
"Tattoos must be in black ink and a classic Book font."
"From this point on, participants will be known as 'words.' They are not understood as carriers or agents of the text they bear, but as its embodiments."
The chosen "words" must be 18 or older and must sign a waiver "releasing the author from any responsibility for health problems, body-image disorders, job loss, or relationship difficulties that may result from the tattooing process."

I hate to sound negative, but this sounds like a rather dubious endeavor to me. Time will tell.

RefGrunting again

(From notes compiled during an evening reference shift last week:)

Video about the Natchez Trace. I am pleasantly surprised to find that the library has this series.

Teen Summer Reading Program raffle tickets.

Teen Summer Reading Program raffle tickets.

Can I return a video from Nearby Public Library here? (Yes! We're one big happy network!)

When did the library mail my holds notification to me?

(In a very loud voice:) "Is S(garble) here?" When I ask for clarification of who S(garble) might be, patron waves his hand dismissively, says "GAAAAHH!" and stomps away.

Place holds on six audiobooks for telephone caller.

Grants for the Physically and Mentally Disabled.

Home improvement books.

Stapler.

The Shootist.

Tapes 4 and 5 of The Dutchess of Duke Street, Vol. 2

Teen Summer Reading Program raffle tickets.

What's the FAFSA school code number for C. University?

Mechanical manual for a Pontiac Grand Am.

Where are the back issues of Wizard magazine? (Sorry, but we only started receiving it this summer.)

Do we carry Elderhostel?

What songs are on this CD? (Library stickers and paraphenalia obscure playlist on rear cover.)

Phone message: "I want to place a hold on an item." Sadly, caller does not supply name, telephone number, nor information about the title desired.

Where do I pick up my printouts?

Two Men in a Trench

I saw a short article about this program in Archaeology magazine. Has anyone seen it? Any opinions?

A sobering webpage: costofwar.com

Remember it the next time a Republican brags about his party's fiscal restraint or rails against "big government".

What Book Are You?

Quoth the Blue Pyramid:

You're A People's History of the United States!

by Howard Zinn

After years of listening to other peoples' lies, you decided you've had enough. Now you're out to tell it like it is, with all the gory details and nothing left out. Instead of respecting leaders, you want to know what the common people have to offer. But this revolution still has a long way to go, and you're not against making a little profit while you wait. Honesty is your best policy.

Sorry, Steph!

MythCon Memories, Part 2

Sunday, August 1

After chasing goblin-heads 'round the grassy sward until the wee hours of the morning, I slept in and missed the first few events on Sunday morning. Too bad. The Linguistic Landscape of the Shire might have proved interesting, as might Appropriation and Myth-Building in Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I regret missing the "Mere Christian worship service", if only because Christianity was such a central part of CS Lewis's work that it seems disrespectful to attend a conference in his memory without explicitly acknowledging it.

The "Khazad-Dum Book Toss" might have been interesting, too, but as a librarian and bibliophile, perhaps I'm better off not knowing what happened there.

At the Society's auction that afternoon, I bid desultorily on a few items, but not energetically enough to wrest them out of the hands of people with more fanaticism and more money. One item I regret not getting: a gen-yu-wine Gandalf For President campaign button.

I was a bit startled to see the prices drawn by certain Tolkien-themed calendars from the 1970's, while other calendars, very similar in appearance, attracted no bids at all. I suppose this is one more object lesson in the unpredictable quirks of highly specialized antiquarian marketplaces.

I stopped by a discussion panel on Dorothy Sayer's fiction, and found the discussion vivid enough to inspire me to delve back into the Lord Peter Wimsey stories. I read Have His Carcase a couple of years ago, and was fascinated by the detailed explanation of the cryptographic techniques used to decipher a crucial piece of evidence, but neglected to follow up by looking for other books in the series. Carlos may find it interesting that some participants suggested that Lord Peter and his loyal servant Bunter were inspired by P.G. Wodehouse's stories about Bertie Wooster and Jeeves. (Best C.S. Lewis quote: saying he enjoyed Sayers' company "for the extraordinary zest and edge of her conversation--as I like a high wind.")

My recollection of Neil Gaiman's talk to the assembled Mythopeians is largely of his discussion of the effect that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. He spoke of encountering the Narnia books at the age of six, and of feeling somehow vaguely betrayed at the age of twelve when he recognized their religious allegorical nature. (This oddly parallels the comments of one of the student workers at one of my previous employers, who commented favorably about the Narnia books and then, when I commented on their religious significance, got a puzzled look on her face. "Wait a minute... Is Aslan some kind of... Jesus figure or something?" Pause. "Ohhhhh....")

I found it particularly intriguing when he mentioned having contributed a footnote to Christopher Tolkien's ongoing series of his father's unpublished material on the History of Middle Earth which explains a connection, albeit a tenuous one, between the decidedly un-ironic Tolkien and the stylishly hyper-ironic James Branch Cabell. (It reportedly has something to do with both of them referring to this old rhyme.)

The evening's entertainments, back at the hotel, were less physically strenuous than those of the previous night. This lady presented some video clips of a ballet for which she had composed the libretto. On the bus the previous day, I had had a chance to hear her discuss this work and the intellectual property issues involved. She had originally hoped to create a work to be titled The Silmaril, which would have been based much more closely on the story of Beren and Luthien. The Tolkien Estate's lack of interest in licensing use of the names and characters forced her to write a different story, with different characters, but one still likely to interest Tolkienophiles. More discussion here.

There was of course the obligatory convention Masquerade, with costumes including multiple Galadriels, a lovely, dancing Polychrome (daughter of the rainbow from the Oz books) properly bedecked in shimmering multicolored gauze, no less than two Hermiones (one equipped with cat, the other with attendant Quiddich-player) and an Evil Queen determined to get her proper due for having inspired so many fairy tales and fantasy stories. Good clean fun all 'round. The next contestants, the Gormless -- Derision, Disorganization, Dipsomania, Dementia, Depravity, Delinquency, and one other whose name escapes me -- can't exactly be called good, or clean, but with the authorial guest of honor serving as one of the costume judges, some such reference to this dysfunctional bunch of siblings was both inevitable and funny.

I decided to participate in the Bardic Circle later in the evening, and, as usual at such events, I was favorably surprised and impressed by the ability of human beings to entertain and inspire each other with their own minds and bodies and voices when they choose to do so rather than surrendering to the omnipresent telescreen. With a little help drawn from Arthurian legendry, Gordon R. Dickson, Tom and Kris Kastle, and Stan Rogers, I managed to survive without, I hope, embarrassing myself too badly.

Monday, August 2

I slept late and missed most of the papers presented, but I did show up in time to buy a T-shirt and copies of a few presenters' papers that I wanted to read in more detail or had missed hearing in person, and to attend the members' meeting and closing ceremonies. Won a couple of books in a drawing: Tolkien and the Great War, by John Garth, and Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede. Despite my low expectations, the latter proved to be an entertaining bit of light fantasy.

With that and a few dozen verses of "What do you do with a drunken hobbit?", the MythCon was over. (And now, at last, I can blog about something else!)

MythCon Memories

I spent most of last weekend at the Mythopoeic Society's annual conference. There wasn't much time to blog during the conference, but I took a few notes, so for the benefit of those who might be interested, here's a retrospective commentary. (I have omitted the names of most presenters other than the conference's authorial guest-of-honor, since this blog is not Google-proofed and I do not wish my ignorant ramblings to affect their careers or reputations. The curious may consult the conference schedules found at the website mentioned above.)

Day One : Friday July 30

I was scheduled to work until 1:15, and didn't actually get away from the library until nearly 2:00 thanks to the arrival of some politically timely books that needed to be checked in as received from the wholesaler and sent on their merry way to the cataloging department. On the way down to the conference hotel north of A-Squared, Ol' Whitey decided that it was a good time to begin spewing coolant all over the inside of the engine bay. Fortunately, there was a gas station with a garage nearby. O happy day.

I stopped in to hear several of the papers presented on Friday afternoon:

Surely you don't disbelieve : Tolkien and Pius X : Anti-modernism in Middle-earth. Compared Tolkien's traditionalist attitudes in his Middle-Earth stories with an encyclical by Pope Pius X expressing concern over the direction of faith and scholarship in the twentieth century ("Pascendi dominici gregis"). Interesting, although Catholic theological thought is a little outside my areas of interest, and I tend to bristle at any proclamation advocating censorship of ideas, as this particular encyclical seems to have done. Best Tolkien quote: "Surely you don't disbelieve in the prophesies merely because you had a hand in bringing them about?" (Gandalf to Bilbo)

Two Sonnets by Roger Lancelyn Green. Presented and analyzed two sonnets on themes related to the Inklings, one Arthurian in theme, the other a tribute to C.S. Lewis that punningly played upon the titles of his various books to describe a spiritual pilgrimage. Good enough to inspire me to look up Green's other poems. But then again I'm always a sucker for Arthurian allusions and witty wordplay. Interesting archival/intellectual-property sidelight: apparently some papers of Walter Hooper to which the presenter had access in the past, including a letter from Green regarding these two sonnets, are now at the University of N.C. but forbidden from public and scholarly access. (Perhaps such restrictions are in reaction to this book?)

A game of you -- yes, you. Commentary on volume 5 of conference guest-of-honor Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novels.

For whom does the Hogwarts bell toll? Rowling's problem, Tolkien's solution. I would love to work at a university that supported classes like the ones this lady teaches.

Why won't they be free? J.K. Rowling's house-elf problem. Are house-elves merely an analogue for house-slaves? For stereotypical happy slaves, born slaves, a naturally subservient race reminiscent of old racist images of blacks and other "colonized" races? What does that say about JKR's typical promotion of tolerance and freedom from oppression? I'm not sure I understand the bit about applying second-wave feminism.

At dinner, I fell into conversation with several other conference attendees, including one lady who, when she smiled or laughed, bore a rather startling resemblance to S.A.P. I made the mistake of mentioning this to her toward the end of dinner. She studiously avoided me for the rest of the conference.

There was a meet-&-greet reception at Borders, which benefited me only to the extent that it allowed me to pick up a couple of copies of Gaiman's books to have signed tomorrow, and to meet one interesting person, a slight, grey-haired lady with a pleasantly lilting voice who seemed to know just about everything there was to know about comedic fantasy and filksongs. And so back to the conference hotel and a late-night big-screen showing of the BBC's version of Gaiman's Neverwhere. I couldn't help noting a distinctly Dr Who-ish look to the production. This was borne out by later comments overheard....

Day Two: Saturday, July 31

Amazingly, I managed to get to the opening session at the Michigan League building on the U. of Mich. campus on time. The League is, by the way, quite a suitable place for such discussions. Its impressive exterior would fit right in at Hogwarts. The furnishings of the interior rooms are a bit too modernized for such comparisions, but certainly more atmospheric than the bland conference rooms at the hotel!

Bridging Tolkien's Gender Divide: Eowyn and the Role of Women in the Heroic Action in The Lord of the Rings. This paper and the discussion that followed were interesting even though I'd already read similar discussions in other criticism and/or argued about it with various freinds via e'mail. I disagreed particularly with her view that Eomer's and Prince Imrahil's exclamations when Eowyn is found, wounded, on the Pelennor Fields after the great battle, constituted a condemnation of her actions. The former's lament seems to me to be just what one would expect from a warrior who finds a beloved relative gravely wounded; the latter's cry of amazement ("Have even the women of Rohan come to fight for us?") seems to bear more favorable connotations than she credits it with.

Neil Gaiman's Sandman and Joseph Campbell: Creating the Modern Myth. The author of this book did an admirable job of keeping his calm and presenting his paper, although it seemed to me he became (understandably) a bit nervous when this shady-looking character slipped unobtrusively into the back of the room....

After lunch, I walked over to a nearby bookshop. Noted with surprise and pleasure that David Garnett's Lady Into Fox has been attractively reprinted by McSweeney's. (The book gives new meaning to that innocuous phrase "Honey, I've changed"!) Was informed by clerk that I missed Neil Gaiman by about five minutes; he'd apparently been in the store to sign their stock of his books during the Mythopoeic Society's lunch. Damn. On the other hand, I wasn't too late to notice that they're hiring part time booksellers. Hmm.

At 2:00, I went to hear Gaiman read one of his stories and answer questions from listeners. The story he read was, according to him, either the best or the worst possible choice to read at MythCon; the answer (said he) would be determined by whether he was or was not found dangling from a lamppost the next morning. He'd taken special care to ask a friend whether or not the story in question was suitable for a conference where a significant number of the attendees were rabid C.S. Lewis fans, and the freind had said to go right ahead.

Of course, the friend in question was Phillip Pullman....

The story Gaiman read, The Problem of Susan (published in this anthology), is a rather dark and disturbing take on something that I suspect many thoughtful Narniaphiles have contemplated: what of Susan? Although Gaiman does not explicitly identify the characters in the story with characters from the Narnia books, there are enough evocative similarities to make it clear that he's commenting on them, or responding to them. Susan, as some may recall, has a different fate from the other three children in the story. Gaiman's story asks, implicitly, how someone would deal with that kind of experience in later life, and what it might say about God/Aslan. Is Aslan a tame lion? Really? Has Lewis inaccurately "tamed" the nature of a God who would permit evil, death, killing, torture, genocide, and horrific train wrecks that kill children in grisly ways and leave bereaved orphans to grow up alone in poverty? What if He were really, really alien to human morality? Theodicy doesn't often rear its head in fantasy writing, but it rears and roars quite ferociously in this little story.

The story struck a chord with me because there have been times when I have contemplated the possibility that if (1) God is good and (2) God is all-powerful, then (3) God has some explaining to do. Of course, if premise (1) or (2) is untrue, then the philosophical problem is resolved quite neatly, but at a certain cost to human comfort.

Unfortunately, Yours Truly seems to have misplaced the notebook in which he wrote down comments from the questions and discussion that followed, and can remember only the guest-of-honor's comment that the television production of Neverwhere was an example of what he called the Great BBC Sausage Machine. ("No matter what you put in at one end, you get Doctor Who out the other.")

My most embarrassing moment: finally getting to the front of the autograph line, chatting briefly, and realizing, after I handed a book across the table for him to sign, that it was already signed. Oops. (Apparently the hardbound copy of this book, which I had ordered by mail last year from a small specialist press, was one that he had signed for them.) He graciously pointed this out for me, and kindly suggested that the paperback copies I'd also brought along for signing were actually better copies for reading, since the hardbound edition had not been adequately proofread.

Managed to avoid making a total ass of myself at dinner.

I skipped the scheduled evening's entertainment -- a Celtic fiddle band -- in favor of catching a couple of hours of sleep before returning to the conference hotel to catch the large-screen showing of the second half of Neverwhere. However, this was not to be, since a lissom maiden lured me out into the moonlit Michigan night to indulge in .... Golfimbul.

Golfimbul is, quite simply, a game which defies rational explanation, which makes a great deal of sense since it is not played by rational people, but by great guffawing hordes of MythSoc attendees, usually in the dead of night. It is reputedly based on the death of the orc chieftain of the same name, which according to Professor Tolkien, was the origin of a certain game still played by some Big Folk today. It involves a baseball bat, a (plastic) goblin's head, and ceremonial kazoo accompaniment. It's weird and wacky and wonderful, and I am now the world Bronze Medal holder for the Golfimbul distance competition. (Woo hoo!)

(Will write more tomorrow... or, rather, later today.)