Subtotal Recall

Hi Carolyn,






 We're getting quite settled here in downtown Merida now. Hard to believe its been ten days already. The weather hasn't been quite as warm as before but perhaps part of that can be because we are here two weeks earlier than we've been in the past.








A couple of entries back I mentioned that I was gonna take an extended look at that copy of Starlog magazine from almost exactly three decades ago  ( Feb. 1985 )  that I found in my Christmas stocking.  It'll be one of those perspective things. So lets crack open this bona fide historical document and do some reading about the past in the present tense.

First of all I was wondering if I was going to have to take my own pics of the various pages to include and then I discovered that all issues of Starlog magazine are available online through The Internet Archive. I grabbed all the pages shots from there and it was a snap. It's quite a resource and I must go and delve into it further.











Wikipedia has a wealth of info on the print version of Starlog  including this on founding editor Kerry O'Quinn: 




       


O'Quinn came up the idea of publishing a one-time only magazine on the Star Trek phenomenon. Houston's editorial assistant Kirsten Russell suggested that they include an episode guide to all three seasons of the show, interviews with the cast and previously unpublished photographs. During this brainstorming session many questions were raised, most notably legal issues. Houston contacted Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry with the intention of interviewing him for the magazine. Once they got his approval, O'Quinn and Jacobs proceeded to put together the magazine but Paramount Studios, who owned Star Trek, wanted a minimum royalty that was greater than their projected net receipts and the project was shelved.




O'Quinn realized that they could create a magazine that only featured Star Trek content but without it being the focus and therefore getting around the royalties issue. He also realized that this could be the science fiction magazine he and Houston had talked about. Many titles for it were suggested, including Fantastic Films and Starflight before Starlog was chosen. (Fantastic Films was later used as the title of a competing science fiction magazine published by Blake Publishing.)




The first issue of Starlog, a quarterly, was dated August 1976. While the cover featured Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise, and the issue contained a "Special Collector's Section" on Star Trek, other science fiction topics were also discussed such as The Bionic Woman and Space: 1999.^[1] The issue sold out and this encouraged O'Quinn and Jacobs to publish a magazine every six weeks instead of quarterly.

 

 

First of all I feel kinda bad about missing out on Starlog when it was still in print. When it first came out I would have been only a few months married and adjusting to a new city and a new school plus still doing the part-time grocery store minion thing too. Methinks there was simply no time to spare.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 In February of 1985, when this particular issue hit the stands I would have been three years into teaching, getting used to a seven month old daughter, and having fun as a new home-owner with a mortgage rate at loan-shark level so it got past me too.





So lets flip some pages here. First stop, the inside front cover. The Prisoner had the same affect on me as it it did on lotsa people. It blew me away.visually and intellectually. To borrow a phrase from The Man in Black  in The Princess Bride

 " I've not seen its equal"


 

Also intriguing to note that the series was available on VHS. In three short decades VHS has been supplanted by DVD which is, in turn, being usurped by streaming online.  

 

  

 

 

 

Kinda cool, also to see an ad for the then newly published fourth part of the " Hitchhikers Trilogy ". Especially since I'm just about to jump into it in my reading regimen down here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've also gotten back into some non-fiction. Just getting to the end of David Halberstams " The Reckoning " which deals with how the American auto industry came to grips with the rise of Japan, the oil crisis and all those other intertwining events in the 60's and 70's.   

 

 Next stop is a most enjoyable column by Dave Gerrold ( Yes, that Dave Gerrold ) to whom the editors pretty well gave carte blanche- with the proviso that he manages to " relate it somehow to science fiction "  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this month's installment he confesses to being a hardcore limerick writer and includes various examples. My favorite is the one he describes as being about how to write limericks and reads as follows:

 

 

When writing these verses of mine

I start with a clever punchline,

Then work backward from there

Toward the opening pair

With the hope it will all work out fine.

 

 

 

The column finishes with a challenge to the reader:

 

Let's see what kind of limericks you can write. It must be a science fiction limerick though. It can be about anything you want it to be as long as it is somehow science fictional.

 

 

He indicates that if there are some really good ones they will be shared in a future column. So I must go back to the Internet Archives just to see if any appeared.

 

 

Plus, I think maybe this idea could be commandeered by us three decades later and  used to augment or diversify the menu here in the blog . There could be limericks as well as riddles perhaps ??!!  Whadya think, Carolyn?

 

 

 

Flipping onward brings us to Part One of a two part item on what is easily my favorite comedy conglomeration, Monty Python. The general gist is that in their forays into sci-fi , Python isn't setting out to make fun of the genre but, as Terry Jones notes, " We just wanted to do funny things within a recognizable context." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of particular interest is the section dealing with Terry Gilliam who is responsible for the Python animation. He's the biggest science fiction fan of the lot and notes at one point that he's " just begun to devour the work of the late SF writer, Phillip K. Dick. "

 

Shall definitely have to get back to the Archives for the second part of that article.

 

 

Okay, I'm realizing that in order to make things manageable this will be a multi-part entry.  There's lots more that I want to go at including the cover story on the Dune movie. As one who " devoured" any and everything about Dune when the novels appeared I was among those folks non-plussed by it's cinematic incarnation. That's for later, though.

 

 

But before we close  Starlog for now, just one last item to include from the pages. I'll let it speak for itself:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have got to get me one of those !!

 

 

Back to 2015 now. Before taking my leave this time around I'll include this weeks words from Mark Twain. This time theres only one but since it's about writing it fits in nicely with the limerick above, topic wise.

 

 

 

 

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

 

 

 

'Til next time ,

 

 

Don

 

As noted above all illustrations are from the Internet Archives online  

Gender issues in publishing? Seriously?

Don,  I love this quote!

" The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all."

The only problem with this is has been getting the public's attention long enough to give us an opinion. It has become a long process of trial and error. Over and over again we are constantly bombarded with how important marketing and advertising is – and then we are undated with marketing and advertising to the extent that as consumers, we no longer care. Another interesting tidbit of information, useful or not, is that Millennials are most likely to leave an opinion than the other generations.  

Getting noticed has been one of the problems facing Wormhole Electric Publishing. And yes, sadly to say, the name Electric Wormhole is already taken. I investigated long and hard but was unable to find out actually who owned that name.

I've also been investigating the different reading habits of adults and have come to the conclusion that Wormhole writers and editors are not normal. It has been reported that generally, women read approximately 12 fiction books a year; men read maybe six books a year – mostly nonfiction. These are sad changes from the reports that I used to base Wormhole off of.

One of the more compelling factoids that I found is that people that would be most likely to buy Wormhole's books do not use social media on a regular basis... So the question becomes how to catch their attention.

Another interesting fact is that even though more women read books than men, most of the published authors are male. This is not to say that there aren't any good female authors, it is just to say that there is a gender issue in the publishing industry.

So all of this information has put me in quite a quandary: do I start moving Wormhole to be more open to women readers? The majority of our writers over the last year and a half have been women... But we are writing in a men's field – science fiction and action adventure.Do we need to refocus the genre of writing to more fiction and romance?

Because our names sound female, does this mean that our work is not being bought? I have to say that from an editor's point of view, if I were to take the names of the authors off of their stories, I don't think that readers would be able to say what was written by a man and what was written by a  woman. We have exceptions – Zack's work and Colby's work are definitely male. And Laura's work is definitely female... But for the rest of our writers, I think it would be hard to tell. Tammy's work is definitely Twilight Zone with a science fiction twist; O'Ryan's work is macabre. I think both of these authors could hold their own against any male writer.

Enough of my soapbox.

Sorry to hear of the demise of the "bug" in the Yucatecan. I guess I never thought of Ferraris on the peninsula... What an interesting assumption I made. But I have to admit, that I never thought much about Ferraris to begin with. I always assumed that they had to be a very rich person's car because they spent most of their time in the shop getting fixed.

I understand your hesitation about children exploring with "unfettered spontaneity". This has been one of the problems with the millennial child – and it is showing up in the classroom. This tendency to believe that children will unerringly "do the right thing at the right time" has led many parents into becoming helicopter parents and to have their children board with them into their 30s.

The socialization consequences have been devastated. People are cocooning, have no idea how to get along with people outside of their own group. Many are shy, in need of constant reassurance, or have little understanding about how they affect the world around them. The one exception to this has been the veterans that have graced my classroom. These good folks come with intention, purpose, and the will to succeed. They have had discipline and they are willing to apply it to themselves in order to accomplish their goal.

Believe it or not I have had several impromptu comedians in my classes over the last couple of years. Needless to say, those were great classes to teach – just inside the line of being controlled. So I had to giggle with Mark Twain's quote about how long it takes to prepare a good impromptu speech. Our speech teachers, however, would disagree.

In a couple of weeks I am going to be teaching story writing. I have been reading The Art of Storytelling: from Parents to Professional by Hannah Harvey through the Great Courses series. Prof. Harvey discusses why storytelling is so important – it makes life coherent, it gives us a sense of who we are, and it helps us create a picture of our future.

Every good story should contain our longings, our hopes, and our fears. She was able to make clear the difference between fact and truth. Fact: what happened. Truth: what it meant. One of the points that she makes is that the protagonist needs to have triumphs and "stumblings" in order to show their humanness. I think the most important point that Harvey points out is that even though storytellers are unique in their background, their upbringing, and personality, they are universal in their representation of culture and the human experience. I'm looking forward to finishing the series.

Well, time to get ready for a workshop that I teach next Friday, and also to finish off the edits for the next Transport we will be publishing in a couple of weeks. With all of the research that I have been doing and who is reading what, I'm beginning to wonder if I need to change the focus of my Tracker Series. Even though I enjoy the research writing that I have been doing, I'm finding myself drifting more and more to the fiction side of writing. I also have a story about two older sisters who bought a multidimensional bed-and-breakfast... That one has not been quite as pushy as the Tracker series because I haven't really given a whole lot of thought as to what other situations these two women could get into. That's not to say that the thought isn't at the edge of my thinking, it's to say that I'm not paying attention.

Have a great week everyone. Don, travel and stay safe. If I remember correctly, last year you got sunburned – hope you are taking precautions this year.

Carolyn

All images downloaded from Google Images or created by LVarvel

Yucatecan Times

Hi Carolyn,




Indeed we have relocated from the Bruce Peninsula to  the Yucatan Peninsula. Consider this our safe arrival blog. The trip was uneventful but seemed awfully long. Five hours of plane travel  plus five more on a bus, even a big comfy one, seemed like more than what ten would feel like on either. Part of it just might be that our fourth time taking this same journey means that as far as the sights and sounds go it's like B.B. King sings - "The Thrill is Gone "



Although, as the local weather prognosticators informed us just before we were leaving Owen Sound  - between the first day of 2015 and the day we were making our craven and cowardly escape, over five feet of new snow fell. Truly and deeply illustrates the concept of motivation, it does.

Speaking of gone things, I'm sad to say that each year when we return I see fewer and fewer original VW beetles rattling about. They're not as scarce as Ferraris but there clearly aren't the swarms of bugs that I saw the first year we were hereabouts. 




I first encountered Neil deGrasse Tyson courtesy of Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. More than once, like you, I've  been impressed and enthralled by how he can communicate the essence of large picture items and complex concepts so effectively to those of us amongst the Great Unwashed who care to listen. I, for one, could claim " ... did I learn more today?" as an unofficial mantra. 








I  get uneasy though, when children are encouraged too often to engage in unstructured and spontaneous exploring. It's mainly because this unfettered spontaneity is often encouraged too vociferously by parents who are either using their offspring to vicariously compensate for what they felt was wholesale repression in their own childhoods or who feel that all children have some sort of magical internal compass that leads them unerringly to do the right thing every time without any guiding external discipline . There's a pretty tricky balancing act involved. It's one with lifelong socialization consequences too.


Dr.Spock has now left the building.



Carolyn, I have to admit I found the musings about a name change for Wormhole Electric Publishing quite thought-provoking. If it's a question of getting the reader with the first two words, why not simply switch the first two words around?  On more than one plane I would be intrigued by Electric Wormhole to be sure - and I can't see it being mistaken for an association of electricians, either.
 

 

 

Oh crap, that name isn't taken already.... is it ???

 

 

So, I have a can't choose conundrum with the  Mark Twain moment again this time and I choose to please all of this person all of this time and stick 'em both in here.

 

 

 

" The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all."

 

 

" It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech."

 

 

 

Now,  to finish sleeping off those travel fuzzies. Catch ya later.

 

Don

 

 

 

All images sourced from Google Images

 

Fig. 1 - www.1070noticias.com.mx

Fig. 2 - www.1966vwbeetle.com

Fig. 3 - www.themostunlikelymother.com

Fig. 4 - www.mirror.co.uk

Fig. 5 - madisoncollege.edu

 

 

 

The Meaning of Life and the Solar System

Don,

I hope that you have traveled well to the tropical climate of your winter dreams. I so understand the "suitcase" reference. See you got a 20 inch upright spinner? Wow! I don't think any of us could ever consider you "dated" when you're carrying that kind of baggage.

A couple of new planets have popped up on the horizon beyond Pluto. At least one of them could quite possibly be larger than Earth. This could really put a crimp in our mnemonic for remembering the planets. I think I'm still trying to adjust to Pluto being downgraded to a planette.

One of the things I've watched several times has been Neil deGrasse Tyson's response to a 6 year old, I'm sorry a 6 ¾ year old's question about what is the meaning of life. Tyson doesn't miss a beat. It is fascinating that he comes up with a description and a definition that an almost 7-year-old child can understand which means that must older folks get the point too.

He defined "meaning" as something  you find or something you create. And he threw out the question of "did I learn more today?" He went on to say that "to learn" gives you power to influence events, help people, and help yourself. Powerful words.

But I absolutely enjoyed the last 2 ½ minutes of his answer – explore nature. Jump into some mud puddles, pull pots and pans out and bang on them with various spoons to hear the different sounds. (Sometimes I still bang  spoon on things in the kitchen just hear the different sounds...) And he said that in the event that this kid's parents asked him why he was doing all of this, he said to tell the parents that Neil deGrasse Tyson gave him permission to explore the world. Sure wish somebody had done that for me.

I cannot complain too much. Living in small towns while I was growing up was one of the best experiences I could ever have. I remember running with my pals and when dinnertime came, there was this call that was transferred from mother to the mother on the next block, to the next mother to give me the message. And when we lived in Silverton, because it was very small confined valley, my mom let me explore. It was when we moved to the big city, Denver, that the permission to explore the world expired.

When we lived in Kentucky, we had a lot of rain storms and our alley was only partially paved. This meant big deep muddy holes for the kids, and me, to jump in. My biggest problem was convincing the kids to wait until they were on their way home from school to puddle jump instead of on the way to school.

Tyson pointed out that when you get older you seem to forget how to have fun. 

My biggest joy as an adult is to rake the fall leaves into a pile and then run through it. My BH doesn't like walking with me sometimes because I walk through the leaves and kick them up as I go. But if I look back, he has a sly grin on his face. I've been trying to think of other things that I do have as much abandoned fun... There are so many things I used to do; I don't do them anymore because they take time away from all of my "adult" responsibilities. Maybe I've discovered a new intention for 2015.

I've put a link here to a short video done by Lucas Green called Space Suite. It is put together with images from NASA and music has been added to complete this visual tour of our solar system and beyond. It is fascinating, brilliant... Hope you enjoy it.

I read an e-book by Kate Harper on publishing and selling on the Kindle through Amazon. It has given me some ideas on what to do with some of our stories from Wormhole. We are also looking at changing the name of the company from Wormhole Electric Publishing. Several people have pointed out recently that most people do not read beyond the second word in a title unless the second word leads to the third word. This means that many people thought of our publishing business was an electrical business because they never read the whole title. So I am looking into a new company name. Have some ideas but haven't done all of the investigation necessary for the change.

Went back to school this week – lots of new fresh faces... It is going to be a great quarter.

Don, I have to say that the two quotes from Mr. Clemens are well chosen. The one about going to heaven for the climate reminded me of several jokes but I can't tell them in mixed company. And the one about "loyalty to the government when it deserves it" is an incredible statement of our time. We are back to watching the Republicans slither around to gain ground for the 2016 election knowing full well that they have absolutely no intention of sticking to their word. And sadly, the Democrats are not too far behind. Interesting world we live in.

Hope you are having a great and wonderful time in the sun. Are you seeing as many VW's as you did the first time? I am sure that there continues to be a collision of culture between the horse and carriage and the cell phone technology. Travel safe.

Carolyn

All images downloaded from google images

Neil de Grasse Tyson retrieved from diusmpelstbw9isfoyk.jpg io9.com

It All Began in Chaos. Retrieved from ngm.nationalgeographic.com

Muddle puddles retrieved from google images

Harper book retrieved from Amazon

All Thumbs Up

Hi Carolyn,

I'd forgotten that you had a second digit operation coming up and didn't realize that it was smack dab at the end of the year. What a way to launch into 2015! Hang tough.  In a few months you'll be ( yes, pun intended ... ) all thumbs again.



BTW, I remember  The Great Race  movie fondly, too. It did include a kick-derriere fight with foodstuffs. It was a piefight, rather than a foodfight and I must make this distinction since I discovered, courtesy of those folks at Wikipedia, that "pieing" has a long and distinguished lineage both in cinema and in politics. People around the western world have even gone to prison for hitting political figures with pies. It's an Emperor's New Clothes kinda thing that deflates pomposity instantly and effectively.  







 Non-specific food fights, by comparison, are  so lowest common-denominator. It's like checkers vs chess or 8-ball vs billiards or whiffle ball vs tennis. I guess I'm down there too, because I like them more. There are  many more weapons to choose from.





I've decided to recycle herein one of the stocking stuffers I got over the Yuletide. It was a Mark Twain desk calendar with one of his witticisms for each day. So for the next while, at least I'm gonna include the best quote from the week or so since the last blog. Since we're a couple of weeks into the new year already, for the sake of completeness I'll start with two from Mr. Clemens :


"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."

"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."



Yes, this will be the last blog from Canada for the next couple of months.  On your behalf we will attempt to appreciate the tropical climate even more. Your bi-polar ( pun sort of intended ) weather that you spoke about last time sounded not too far short of bizarre.

The last few days have been devoted, in part to getting ready for a two month relocation. Packing has included:

- one pair of socks

- one pair of long pants

- one long sleeved shirt

- one lightweight hoodie

 

And all of those items will be worn on the trip there and the trip back only.  The remainder will be T-shirts, shorts, canvas shoes and the like. Even so, it`s a bit of a challenge to keep the checked-in suitcase under the 50 pound limit. 



Actually, that last sentence reminded me of something I discovered while shopping for new luggage recently. The word `suitcase`has  disappeared from the luggage universe. Small suitcase and large suitcase have been superseded by a plethora of terms like upright, carry-on, tote, duffel, hardsided spinner, quilted spinner, co-ordinates and, of course, hybrid. My new suitcase prefers to be known as a hardside, 20 inch upright spinner, doncha know!


So now that I`ve dated myself with the `suitcase' reference let me predate myself further with this next bit.




My younger sister is an E-bay entrepreneur. For the last decade and a half she has derived a good deal of her income from offering collectible items online. She`s done fairly well with it, too. In the process she`s become a haunter of various places where such saleable stuff can be found from time to time. Her Christmas gifts are always interesting. For example, one year she sent me a bunch of monthly magazines she had unearthed all of which were published in October of 1950, my birthday month. It was pretty cool.






Anyhow, this years Christmas goodie bag included an issue of Starlog Magazine from February, 1985. The date has no particular significance. It was in there just because she knows that I`m a sci-fi person and thought I`d get a kick out of it.  She's right, of course.



Well, I've had a chance to leaf through it a bit, and it's packed in my "suitcase" to take to Mexico and I'm gonna deliver a full report once I've gotten all the way through. It's most interesting, from a perspective standpoint , to see where we came from. So stay tuned.





Well, this brings me to the end of this here blog. I expect, at this point to be back next week but it all depends on the connectivity situation once we get down there. Carolyn, I hope your second recuperation goes even more "weller" than the first.


Continue having fun.


Don




Images sourced from Google Images

Fig. 1 - www. theruthlessmonk.com

Fig. 3 - neosoulcafe.com

Fig. 4 - www. Weimar.com

 

The Great Race and Food Fights

Don, your solution to international hostile intent is fantastic – the ultimate food fight. However, I would suggest that there be no silverware of any kind or ceramic plates or pots and pans included in this little culinary feast of deviant behavior. I think your suggestion that it be at the U.N., is a great idea. They definitely have the room.

How would you judge who won? The person who gains the most weight from licking their wounds? Whoever is the 1^st or the last to empty their onslaught buffet table? And I'm not so sure you can keep the judges from not being involved. With all that food flying around, I'm sure that at least one or 2 judges would like to taste the fair.

Years ago there was a movie called The Great Race with Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon, and Peter Falk (1965). The food fight in this movie is an absolute stitch! And the fact that Tony Curtis stayed completely clean throughout the fight was just this side of a miracle. The fight did resolve the problem in a positive way.

I imagine that you are getting ready to move on to a warmer climate for a couple of months. I envy you. I hope that your travels to and from the airport are safe and easy. And I hope that both you and your better half soak up all those positive rays that the sun has for you. Are you going to go anywhere exciting?

We've been caught in a 2 day cycle – one day it is 50°, then during the night the temperature falls and we have extreme humidity and mist that freezes. Then Mother Nature, just to keep us on our toes, lays down a half inches snow on top of that. And the 2^nd day warms up to maybe 25°. Then sometime during the night, the temperature starts rising and we go through the whole cycle all over again. It has been the strangest weather event to see hoarfrost in Colorado.

If you remember, in June, I had my right thumb joint reconstructed. This left me a left-handed for 3 months – which was a great way to re-experience the world. However, I paid the price for that and New Year's Eve I had reconstructive surgery on my left thumb. I am finally off the painkillers, and sleeping in the bed instead of a recliner. The mechanics of the world are the way they're supposed to be so I'm able to get in and out of the house without having to figure out how the door handle turns. 

But I'll admit  I'm not as good at protecting my left arm and hand – I keep trying to compensate to make sure that I do not re-damage the right-hand. I get my hard cast on Tuesday. Maybe then I will be able to do some driving. Being housebound because of the weather, not being able to drive, it being the darker part of the year, has made this a much more challenging adventure than the surgery in June. I will survive. 

Don, please enjoy the sun for me.

I have spent the last couple of weeks researching small independent publishers and looking at what works and what doesn't work. I ran across an interesting statement about whether or not publicity results in increased sales. The 3 experts that I read concluded that publicity may or may not be helpful. Several other articles that I have read point out that because everyone has access to publishing, everyone who has at any time even considered writing a book, has written it and published it. There have been over 1 million books independently published in 2014.

That is a lot of reading material. The question becomes, how to be noticed. I have not figured that out yet, but I'm beginning to think that the publishing field right now is like your food fight, Don. So maybe some kind of experimentation is in order. Have no idea what that looks like – but I am open to suggestions.

Have a great week folks,

Carolyn

All images downloaded from Google images

Fig 1 -- 1^st prize pies retrieved from www.aandmag.com

Fig 2 -- the largest pie fight the great race retrieved from www.delish.com

Fig 3 -- 5 best food fights on film retrieved from blogs.phoenixnewTimes.com

Fig 4 -- consumer and contractor products and services retrieved from www.meeks.com

Fig 5 -- hoar frost free images retrieved from pixabay.com

Fig 6 – hoarfrost on aircraft retrieved from galleryhip.com

Fig 7 -- fill your house with stacks of books Dr. Seuss – vintage book retrieved from www.Pinterest.com

Fig 8 --  when book bloggers hit the wall – Rob Steiner retrieved from robsteiner.quarkfolio.com

Foodmageddon

Hi Carolyn,



Well,  'tis the season to be waylaid. Mom nature conspired with other stuff to prevent  me being back here sooner. Funny,  a few days ago I was on about how benign the winter was thus far.  Perhaps the person she posted at the snow switch heard me and took umbrage because over the last few days  the relentless snowfall has truly returned. 



To be sure, it's not up to Buffalo, N.Y. standards but we've got a carpet on everything so far that peaks above the knees of all but NBA sized folk... and it just keeps on coming! It's not blizzard stuff just  squalls in the open areas and endless fluff  from above.  Pencil in an hour at the start of each day for shovel and snowblower  activities.



 Outside is an endless panorama of postcard scenery. Even the scrawniest of fir trees look all regal and majestic in their snowy capes.  The tallest ones are stop-and-look impressive. Behind our yard the forest is a study in snow-covered serenity. Even the steady winds don't seem to smudge the encompassing beauty.  Functioning in this wonderland is sometimes another saga, though. A recent day trip to London Ontario was stretched into two and a bit just because of driving conditions.


Anyhow, enough atmospheric chit-chat.

　

Your recent account of supping with extended family, replete with tongue biting moments supplied by politically obstreperous  partakers in the repast was most enjoyable to read. I especially clicked into the “ hell froze over quickly” part. Similar situations are probably part of almost any holiday family gathering. Spirited interchanges seem to blossom around the dinner table - a phenomenon I had trouble with growing up, though, because my folks taught me to never talk with my mouth full…


Although , “It would be a dull world,” my mom used to say in her quiet, diffusing way,” if everyone always agreed completely with what everyone else said“.


Mothers are usually on the money, aren’t they?


Somehow, while reading about your dinner moments, I got tossed sideways, into a giddy, slapstick scenario - which I hereby share. It’s been awhile since I’ve stumbled off into left field. So, with the extended family meal as the catalyst ....... a wee tangent trip.





It could be at the holiday table, or in a busy room making small-talk and munching hors d'oeuvres   ( horses doovers as my dad called them ). Either way, remaining placidly tight-lipped while voices within earshot spew out silly, and divisive verbage is one of those things that tests all of our souls.



  I do believe this was the primordial pool that spawned the first food fight .

 

 

It had to be.! If you know that you can’t effectively answer a  discordant  voice with airtight counter arguments because they simply won’t listen, then why not respond with a silent and deftly tossed dinner roll or appetizer that temporarily, stanches the relentless flow of oral absurdities from the orifice in question? It also nourishes them and gives them a moment of reflection.

 

 

  It’s  negotiation politics - when conventional methods fail you cannot simply capitulate. You must mount a thoughtful, meaningful but not conspicuously vicious or unduly provocative  counteroffensive if you wish to ultimately achieve your goal. That mouth that was in the process of creating yet  more chaos can be stopped in mid-flight with a mild splat of  superbly spiced  pate or artichoke heart.   No blood is let and no bruises are inflicted but you will have established , unequivocally, your line in the sand. And, for those who were there to witness the occasion, it was jolly-well entertaining. Tis the season to be jolly n’est-ce-pas?


So, with this in mind, ( pun absolutely and childishly intended ) some food for thought......



   Why not institute the food fight  as a means of dealing with international conflicts and issues ?  Instead of the  countries of the world diverting inordinate percentages of their GNP for weapons of mass  destruction and guns, missiles, explosives, and land, water and airborne vehicles of extravagant sophistication and extraordinary cost They could  have food fights. Each country involved could muster one or more of it’s national culinary dishes to unleash upon the other country or countries embroiled in whatever dispute is being dealt with.

The infrastructure is already there at the U.N.  There must be acres of kitchens to deal with the customary cuisine requirements of the member nations' delegates and their support staff. As far as the rules and referees go, there must also be floor upon floor of suits  in that iconic structure  whose sole purpose is to sort out the international law issues that are part and parcel of this international entity. The tendency of lawyers to delay and obfuscate could be countered by the requirement that all items to be determined on a given day are to be resolved by dinnertime or struck from the menu ( no leftovers please!)





I see dinner tables of varying lengths and dimensions set up in dining halls where the combatants could convene for a negotiation meal, as it were. The choice of weapons could be almost endless, since each country would understandably want to make its case with it's native cuisine. Once the plates have been filled the attendees  would listen to some sort of opening address from each of the nations or alliances involved and then, procedurally at least, set in motion a meaningful dialogue. This, naturally, would devolve into fractious behaviour.   Someone within the assemblage would pick up an item of food and let it fly.  Things would thereafter unfold as decorum dictates in any decent food fight. Blitzes of blintzes and blinis  answered by fusillades of fusilli or a shower of sushi. Salvoes of samosas unleashed in response to a  a hullabaloo of hummus.  It would truly be a hands-on, finger-lickin' good experience.

 

 

The air would be filled with all kinds of delectable destruction. Licking one's wounds would be tasty, indeed.

 

 

　

　

Is this idea stupid, silly, infantile and ludicrous ? Yes, of course.  But, is it even one one-hundredth  as horrendously stupid and vicious and life-destroying  as the manner in which international conflicts are resolved in the real world?  Do the math.




See ya soon,

Don


All images sourced from Google Images

Fig. 1 - northidahowellness.com
Fig. 2 - www.delish.com
Fig. 3 - dailysignal.com