Hello, Bob;

12 Sep 04 08:56, Bob Lawrence wrote to Robert Bull:

 BL>  Writing is a craft, and the two parts of that craft I lack are the
 BL> ability to make my characters act so stupidly that they create
 BL> unnecessary conflict (trapped by stupidity), and I lack the ability to
 BL> write in bureaucratese.

But, if you're writing SF, isn't your conflict likely to be set up partly 
by the "cold equations" of physics?  And even normally sensible people can 
have careless moments, or whatever.  Fred Pohl in MAN PLUS has a problem 
arise because everybody was down with 'flu and didn't feel up to telling 
someone something difficult (he was being cyborged, and they didn't want to 
tell him that in order to survive in the cold of Mars, his wedding tackle 
had been, uh, disconnected).

 BL> no problem at all with violence). I solve the bureaucratese deficiency
 BL> by plagiarism. It's meaningless anyway, so when I need one I keep my
 BL> eyes open for a good example, and copy it word-for-word.

Isn't there a sense in which bureaucratese -is- plagiarism, in being a 
shared jargon used to create a shared fiction where their jobs actually 
mean something?

 BL>  After years of war, what the people of Iraq want is stability. The
 BL> poor Yanks have no idea. One only has to compare Basra under the

Americans seem so oddly insensitive...

 BL>  Writers always say so... but I don't trust them. Mark Brandon Read
 BL> has written a series of weird books in the CHOPPER series. What makes

If you're into weird, the weirdest book I've ever read is Flann O'Brien's 
THE THIRD POLICEMAN.  A self-confessed murderer and all-round heel recounts 
his odyssey through his personal Hell, while simulateously detailing his 
attempt to write the biography of a minor aristocrat in the face of an 
avalanche of misinformation, and attempting to keep one step ahead of a 
trio of bicycle-obsessed policemen.  You learn, for example, how to tell if 
a person is turning into a bicycle, and the only thing you can put into a 
perfectly-crafted box ("and if I were to tell you the cost of it, your 
astonishment would be flabberghasted").

 BL> it interesting is that Mark Read is a genuine psycho, a murderer and
 BL> a convicted criminal. So far as I can work out, he doesn't give a

Hmmm...  sounds a bit strong for me.  Have you read the "Ripley"
books?  Is 
there some similarity?

 BL>  Sounds more like natural selection, and that doesn't dumb-down, it
 BL> lifts up.

Sure?  I mean, are you saying the pinnacle of evolution is soccer fans?

 BL>  Okay, so if subsiding opera and classical music improves the
 BL> breed, where is our new Verdi, Beethoven, Wagner? Why do they keep
 BL> producing century-old crap? If you start at Beethoven and move

Those chaps were mostly working for the aristocracy, the people who count.  
They had one advantage that later composers didn't - they still had all the 
best tunes available...

 BL> forward in time, assuming that old Ludwig was in the entertainment
 BL> business, what are the signposts? None of the major ones are in the
 BL> Classical music, Opera, or Ballet region. To me, the Beetles had more
 BL> influence than Mahler, and Satchmo was more creative.

One of the Beatles once said they were more popular the Jesus Christ.  A 
British bishop gave them a splendid put-down - "Our show has been running a 
lot longer, and our total audience is bigger."  It's possible Mahler's 
influence may eventually be bigger and longer-lasting, but maybe it's too 
early to tell.  Shostakovich certainly had a lot of influence in Stalinist 
Russia, because e.g. the Fifth Symphony seems to be about a determination 
to survive in the face of oppression.  Classical music mattered a lot there 
and then because Western-style popular music would have been banned.

 BL>  I had a mate who was right into Classical, it was not a matter of
 BL> being one-up with the cogniscenti he really liked it, it did something
 BL> in his brain, but to me it is just jiggly-jiggly totally predictable,
 BL> boring! I have no problem with someone liking stuff I see as totally
 BL> empty, but I do have a problem with subsiding their queer tastes,
 BL> just as I could understand if they objected to subsiding the Beetles.

I doubt you'd like highly unpredictable music based on statistical 
processes  :-)  It needs to have pattern to have a chance of "doing 
something to your brain."

BTW, are you subsidising your Australian Living National Treasure, Peter 
Sculthorpe?  :-))  Actually, I quite like what little bits of his work I've 
heard.

 RB>> Just finished: LORD OF SNOW AND SHADOWS by Sarah Ash. Ash's new

 BL>  It sounds like it's got soemthing for everyone. No incest?

Not in Volume 1...

     Regards,

              Robert.

CBIP: AVIGNON  by Marianne Calman
     A mainstream historical novel and shaping up as a good one, set in 
     Avignon during the time of the Papacy there, and concerning the 
     relationships between the Christians and Jews as the city gets hotter 
     and plague breaks out.
Just finished:  WINTER ROSE  by Patricia McKillip
     Sort of a fairy-tale told in a matter-of-fact first person way.  Not 
     much action, but tremendous atmosphere, and she writes well.

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