News and Opinion from Kay

I have very strong views on education, especially music education.  I still keep in touch with some of the colleagues from the places at which I have taught, and it surprises me how concerned they are about education, especially their specific fields.  "Chemistry is being neglected," says a tenured chemistry professor, and "Math is not being taken seriously enough!" exclaims a tenured math professor, and "there's too much emphasis on everything except foreign languages" insists a tenured professor in modern languages.  Am I different because I agree with all of them--to some degree?  Clearly, colleges have now been put in the position of having to give kids a general education, to allow them to function in society.  (Grade school used to do this, but in those years kids are awfully busy being kids.)  This frantic competitiveness when it comes to the various disciplines within a school seems needlessly . . . I don't even know the word for it.  (It's fractious.  I had a brain fart.)  It is as if they have never heard the motto: United we stand, divided we fall!  We must all hang together, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, or we will certainly be hung out to dry separately.  And who should know better that all subjects and disciplines should be given equal emphasis once those fields are introduced into the curriculum than college professors?  They seem to spend far too much time fretting about the stability of their jobs.

I think the central tragedy in our society today is the conviction that nothing is worth more than money.  We have grown up with people who have been preoccupied with material wealth for years, but somehow it never came to the point where it was all that mattered. Reputation, appearance, appearances (not the same thing), power, education, social standing, the public good, all these things mattered to some degree.  But a recent article about a Virginia economist called James Buchanan traces the roots of the economic and political strategy of the economic elite who mastermind the politics in Washington to this man.  He advocated not just the defeat of the welfare state, but the actual destruction of democracy.  Ayn Rand had a relatively sunny disposition, says the author of this piece, compared to Buchanan.  Reading it, one gets the conviction that Trump is merely a tool.

Well, as long as we're alive, we have to push back, and I have neither the inclination nor the training to contribute to the resistance which must take place.  But an important component to the upbringing of the sort of citizen who has a vision of the kind of world in which diversity and art and culture have a place is the proper education.

Whether we like it or not, our environment is educating our kids to believe that only money matters.  Well, our environment is mostly dominated by businesses.  What do we expect?  Money is the very blood of Business, so if we swim in a sea of business, money is inevitably the source of all energy.  Is this, I wonder, the origin of this panic-stricken urgency that so many on the Christian Right feel to proselytize everyone?  Well,  I have news for them: can't you see how your very evangelists have sold their souls to Mammon?  That is the fact that most makes me want to tear my hair out!  More than Trump, Christianity is a tool for this anti-Democratic cohort to dismantle the political philosophy of this, the longest-surviving constitutional democracy.

These Buchananites (as opposed to ordinary Libertarians, some of whom want extreme freedom in order to serve their fellow-man according to their own impulses--but, I'm convinced, not so these Buchananites) must go through life with the opposite of rose-colored spectacles; everywhere they look, they only see someone out to steal their money.

In Helen vs. Messiah, Marissa lies in bed, broken-hearted at the fact that Helen has retired from the concert stage, and apparently gone into a depressed funk.  Here's an excerpt --not the one I was looking for, which would have better illustrated how Marissa regarded Helen, but this will have to do:

Helen’s miraculous arrival a year and some months ago had made her life less of a disaster than it would have been.  In spite of all the heartbreaking obstacles Helen had been presented with, she had given Maryssa the strength to see the world as a place with possibilities, with kindness and friendship hidden behind its rough, harsh face.

That's the essence of it.  Just as Helen opened Marissa's eyes to see the world without being threatened by it, so education does the same for us.  An infant sees the world as its mother.  Then, as it grows older, and experiences its environment, a time comes--or could come--when all it sees is the rough, harsh face of the world.  If we cannot get beyond that intimidating facade, then we're fair game for those who see their environment--and I'm not talking about woods and streams here; I mean the world outside us--those who see the world as something to be mastered and dominated.  The recent history of the USA has this thread of exploitative domination running through it, and not in a happy way.

Those who aren't in sympathy with the aims of college education, see it as an opportunity for the wrong kind of people to indoctrinate innocent kids.  (If there are any college professors reading this: there are great dangers in trying to fight fire with fire, and indoctrination with indoctrination.)  What you can do is to present the basic interconnectedness of all things as something positive, and the world as something to be embraced and appreciated, rather than a hostile entity that needs to be put in a cage, and exploited for oneself (not even for the benefit of others among one's acquaintances).

That was exhausting to write; a thousand curses upon those who dream up these dreary theories which we must labor to address!  The rough harsh face of the world just looks a lot harsher today.
[more after the break:]

Politics

The policy of taking kids at the border away to hold separately sort of died not with a bang, but a whimper, as far as I can see.

Each time they dream up some executive order to rile up the Democrats (which is really what they're doing, and the Democrats know it, but can't help from reacting) it costs the government millions of dollars.  They're eating up their own financial reserves (thinking about the treasury as 'belonging to' the Republicans, which it may as well, seeing as it isn't money, but anti-money, to borrow an idea from the Physics people), which in turn means that they're adding to the deficit.  This means only one thing: the GOP has filled its pockets symbolically with all it can carry, and is preparing to allow the Democrats to deal with this unprecedented deficit.

If only the people-at-large understood the problems with deficit spending!  The national debt is now so large that the liberals and the Democrats cannot afford any social welfare.  Once the Democrats take Congress (and I'm almost willing to bet that the GOP will actually work in the side of the Democrats, because there's nothing for the GOP in taking Congress, and everything to be gained by seeing a Democrat Congress flounder for two years) all the Democrats can do is raise taxes again, pay down the deficit again, and try to prevent the Trumps from running off to Moscow.  Wait . . . maybe we ought to leave the deficit where it is, and maybe add to it a little.  Hopefully no do-gooders will step up to the plate to solve all the problems with brilliant out-of-the-box thinking . . . There may not be any boxes left, once 2019 rolls around.

Kay H. B.

A New Title for Music Of The Stars

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled on an idea for a new title to my solitary Science Fiction book.  It had been titled Music of the Stars, which was so non-descriptive it might as well have been Song of the Nightingale.
The new title is:  Music of the Galactic Voyager, which is a little better, but not enormously better.  Here’s the cover:

It hasn’t been changed very much; I’m not as energetic about window-dressing as I used to be!
The story is about actual space travel, as a phenomenon in its own right, and not as a setting for more well, exciting might be the word we want here, adventures.  It is going to take off like a lead balloon in conventional Sci-Fi circles among conventional Sci-Fi readers.  In that genre, I must say, love, and family, and relationships and things that some sorts of people consider mushy are sidelined, so that the politics and the mechanics and other science-fiction-type aspects can come to the forefront.  As for me, romance, and art, and play and curiosity trump all those other things.  One of my favorite fantasy writers is Marion Zimmer Bradley, and her stories are full of the kinds of things that I value highly.  I have read many of her books, if not all, and I love them.  But this story of mine is probably going to be classified as hard science fiction, because the fantasy element is practically absent, and I think that’s the most appropriate description of the story.  Only one person has bought the book, which costs all of two dollars and fifty cents, and I’m only restraining myself from giving it away free because it would be a slap in the face of that noble buyer.

In the story, they discover a planet, which the majority of the Ship leadership think is not suitable for colonization.  But there is a stubborn minority who insists on staying on the planet, which puts serious constraints on the resources of the Voyager.  I finished the story a couple of years ago, only to find, on reading it over, that it had been left in a very unsatisfactory state.  (Okay, yes; I’m rotten to the core, so shoot me.)  I am determined to write what amounts to a new last chapter, which will leave things in a lot better shape, if not perfect shape.  And I will make it free for the one person who has bought the book.  That will take some quite fancy footwork.

Kay H. B.

'Squire': A Keladry Story from Tamora Pierce

I am currently reading this book: Squire, a book in one of the series by Tamora Pierce, set in a place call Tortall.  Ms. Pierce is much loved by young readers, judging from the scores of web pages devoted to her on the Internet, but I must pay my five cents' worth of homage, because I am enjoying the story so much.

Just Google 'Tamora Pierce', and you will learn all you probably wish to know about the author, while doing the same with 'Keladry, Protector of the Small', will give you volumes of detail about the protagonist, Keladry of Mindelan.  Teachers: if you begin to see hordes of young women named 'Keladry', this would be evidence about how much this character--and her creator, Ms. Pierce--is beloved among parents of a certain age.

One thing I must remark on is that Tamora Pierce has the gift of putting words into the mouths of her characters that suit them perfectly.  Of course, without this gift, the author would probably not be widely read; I have read books by some people where this ability is tragically absent.  Tragic not because it is an obstacle to their fame and popularity--some of these authors are top-selling people--but because in my twisted mind, being able to write dialogue that really reveals the character's thinking, and helps us to relate to them via our interaction with people we know, and the things they might say, really makes the story pop out of the printed page.

Pierce's heroine in the first story set in the Tortall Universe was Alanna, a noble girl who aspires to be a knight.  It turns out that there have been other female knights before Alanna, but in this first story, it is as if Alanna is trying something impossible, and Tortall society has taken a conservative turn, and Alanna has to fight like mad.  Pierce gives Alanna an advantage, in that the girl has magic gifts, which she desperately needs in order to battle her magic-wielding adversaries.

A couple of decades later, along comes Keladry, who is as unmagical as she could be, and instead of an advantage, she has a handicap, namely a huge protective instinct, which impels her to take on responsibilities with no regard to how thinly she's going to be spread.  (The illustration shows her holding a baby griffin that inflicts painful bites and scratches on Keladry while she tends it, and while various knights challenge her to trials in the tournaments, which leave her black and blue.)

While Alanna is presented as fighting to be allowed to join the ranks of the forces that have become the exclusive domain of males, Keladry just wants to be qualified to do her thing on her own terms.  In some ways their battles are parallel: they echo the battle in today's world for women to have the same freedoms as men.  But where Alanna became a champion of women in her society, Keladry comes across as someone stubbornly pursuing the right to take on her own low-profile battles to protect every underdog she encounters.  We've all met women of both these types, and neither type is superior to the other.  Many kids of both sexes will probably identify more readily with Keladry's anti-bullying stance--though Alanna faced up to bullies in her time--simply because many of us have met people like Keladry, quiet, unassuming, a little stodgy, and utterly reliable.  We desperately needed Tamora Pierce to give us such a heroine, with just a touch of well-deserved glamour!

A Blog Post for May—Lost In Space

Dear Readers,

It's been some time since I made a post, so here is some news from Hemlock Land!

As I have said, I like to re-read my own fiction, mostly because I get annoyed by the writing of other authors.  Not all of them, mind you; it's just that if I'm annoyed by one of my own stories, I can always go back and fix it, when I have the energy!

I have also found out how to make a paragraph break of less than a line, which I'm going to try out today!  (I don't like full line paragraph breaks.)

Lost in Space:  I just watched the first episode of the new series of Lost in Space on Netflix.  The sets and costumes and special effects are all really wonderful, and there's lots of creativity about how the new series descends from the original children's "Space Family Robinson" idea.  The story is set so far in the future that, according to a principle of science fiction writing established back in the mists of time, the technology of the future (provided it's far enough in the future) may as well be magic to us.

I have a couple of entries in the Science Fiction genre (or SF, as it is fondly called by practitioners of the art, but it seems a little precious to buy a little extra scientific style by just using acronyms gratuitously, as they do in NASA), only one of which is true science fiction, the others being mere fantasy: I'm referring to Music of the Stars.  It's a terrible title, I know, but I just can't think of a better one, other than "Helen in Outer Space", which makes me puke.  Wait . . . I could call it The Galactic Voyager!  Sometimes I am so dense . . .

Note: Music of the Stars was intended to be a story in the setting of science in this century, not super-fantastic, super-futuristic science.  Lost in Space is definitely several centuries in the future, or at least one.  It also (spoiler alert) features a robot that is nothing like the robots we have conceived in the near past, and its design does not appear to have any practical object!  Music of the Stars, at least, never errs on the side of gratuitously exotic features.  In fact, scientifically, we would consider them to be throwbacks to a couple of decades ago!  I began writing it when cellphones were not common, so they do have cellphones, but they're used only for making phone calls!  Anyway, I think it would be boring to write about people who're continually looking at their phones!

Also, the main character is diabetic, an ailment about which I knew very little, and so I did not feature the usual treatments that are used to control the condition.  This makes sense, because the patient was very mildly diabetic, and when the story begins, nobody on board the giant space vessel is diabetic except this one woman, since the others had all been screened for the disorder before being admitted to the project (and she feels horrible when she finds out).  So none of the doctors on board bothered to learn about advanced treatments for diabetes, and did not have the wherewithal to manufacture (synthetic) insulin, for instance, while traveling in space.

Scientific Training:  As a kid, I first started out in what they call today a STEM track, before I switched over to a social science / art / music track, so though I'm not an expert, I actually know a little physics and chemistry.  Some science fiction writers, I believe, have learned their science from reading science fiction.  This encourages them to write fiction where the science tends to be distractingly speculative.  Why not, they probably tell themselves; it may as well be magic!  But science is plenty magical enough anyway; it's the element of reality, of plausibility, that attracts me to this genre.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM):  There's a lot of talk and propaganda about there being a severe shortage of college graduates trained in this area.  It is true that for us to compete in technology against the Koreans and the Japanese, and so on, it is important for there to be lots of kids graduating with degrees in exactly these fields.  Especially for disadvantaged kids, it does appear to promise better chances of being hired.  Ideally, an American kid with a degree in computers, for instance, would earn a higher rate of pay than a Chinese kid, for instance, applying for the same job; at least this is what appears to be behind the rhetoric we get from the administration.  But I distrust promises of this sort.

In an ideal technology organization, at the higher level, there would be those who have a broader training.  This is why a lot of companies want to hire managers and coordinators with Liberal Arts degrees, that is, those who have done coursework in languages, writing, history, sociology, yes, and even subjects that seem useless, such as music and theater.  What do you think are the chances that future technology might be relevant to music and the arts--subjects that the ignorant dismiss as merely entertainment?  You tell me.  (The failures of the present administration could be traced to individuals being trained very narrowly; not even in STEM fields, but in business and law, most of them self-taught, in the art of theft and dishonesty.)

Technology in an Isolated System:  On the space vessel in which Music of the Stars is set, The Galactic Voyager, all raw materials are scarce.  The main character, Helen, has done an internship with a maker of musical instruments in her college days.  She recalls having made an instrument a semester.  On the Voyager, of course, it does not make sense to make an infinite number of guitars, for instance, to use and discard.  Everything has to be maintained carefully, repaired as needed, and used for ever.  This is not the American Way.  We're accustomed to buying something new if we need something.  (For the longest time, I didn't have personal transport; I depended on the kindness of my friends for transport everywhere, then depended on public transport, and walked wherever I could.  Then I bought a bicycle, and then a used car . . . you get the picture.  Yes, I was guilty of not supporting American Industry.  Now you know my guilty secret: I refused to burn up the Planet just so I could drive about in style.)  Unfortunately, unlike Helen, I don't know how to make and repair guitars, so if my guitar falls apart, I must either stop playing, or find a replacement.  I found out that even professional instrument repairers are sometimes too impatient with older instruments.

Children:  One way in which my fiction is a little different from the writing of others is that there are lots of kids!  Stars has its quota of kids: I remember seven kids, and a couple more kids in minor roles.

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying a pleasant spring!  Around here, the temperatures have been very variable, and the precipitation has kept us seriously off-balance.  I'm trying to lose weight, because my small circle of friends are all trying to diet, and I decided that I need to as well!

Wishing you a happy Mother's Day,

Kay

The Myers-Briggs classification of this Blog, and A greeting to readers!

My books sell very slowly; I'm lucky I don't depend on my books for a living!

Of my best-selling books, the most popular one is Prisoner! which has occupied the number 1 spot for more than a decade.  (I think.)  I understand; it is very readable, and the characters are simple, and the story is romantic.

Alexandra  and  Music of the Stars are the two most serious efforts, the most substantial books, in terms of number of words, each more than 250,000 words.

Apart from Prisoner!, the books that sell these days are Helen at Ballet Camp, and Helen and the Flower Shop Girl, both of which are essentially short stories (Flower Shop Girl is a short story, and Ballet Camp is a sort of Teen novelle).

I am reading Alexandra for fun at the moment, and it is interesting how the character Ninel arrives in the middle of the story, and sort of takes over!  I do love that character, (as well as little Katie,) and it must reveal something about me, probably that I long for a child, which is a little embarrassing.

In Music of the Stars, too, there is a young person who is very important, namely Lena, who is about 20 years younger than Helen at the beginning of the story, and actually the same age as Helen at the end of the story.

On a completely different tack, I submitted this blog to a website that gives you the Myers-Briggs 4-letter analysis of the author of a blog, and it came up ISFJ.  Here's the full report:

The author of http://k-helen.blogspot.com/ is of the type ISFJ.

The quiet, devoted and sympathetic type. They are especially attuned to the present moment, the details of the task at hand and the people involved. ISFJs usually have an extremely good memory of details of people and situations. They are modest caretakers who do not demand credit or thanks for their efforts.

They tend to be suspicious of future possibilities and trust history more than the future. Their shyness with strangers can lead others to misread them as standoffish. Because they are so such nice and generous people they have to look out not to be taken advantage of. It might be important for them to learn to speak up for themselves.

The Nurturers enjoy safe and harmonic work places with few surprises and clear goals. ISFJs are serious people with a strong work ethic, not inclined to self-indulgence. They believe in being meticulous and thrifty. They work well alone. While they may enjoy taking care of others, they do not enjoy giving orders.

Common satisfying careers: Interior Decorators, Designers, Nurses, Administrators, Dentists, Veterinarian, Social Worker, Biologist, Medical Researcher and Librarian.

Notable ISFJs: Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, Prince Charles, Tiger Woods, Halle Berry, Naomi Watts, Kirsten Dunst and C3P0.

Well!  The analysis took less than a second, so I must conclude that they just sampled the most recent blog post.  Still, I confess that I just loved their conclusion, and I only wish it were accurate.  In several of my stories, someone tells a character: you are so good and sweet, your mother must be truly blessed to have a child like you!  And the person replies: why, are (other people you know) particularly mean or cruel?  Unlike my characters, I do know that I have fewer mean tendencies, and I tend to withdraw from a conflict rather than confront it.  The only disconcerting things is that I'm described as serious.  I never realized this; I had always thought of myself as a fun person.

I hope I quickly forget this description of the bucket I have been placed in; as I grow older, I'm becoming less helpful and caring, though I'm even more aware of feelings, especially pain, in others.  If I respond to pain, it should be spontaneously, and not because I wound up as the same Myers-Briggs type as Mother Theresa!

The Blog analysis can cheat in any number of ways; for instance, by counting the number of links, or certain categories of words, they can quickly arrive at conclusions that are mechanically driven, which methods are not available when administering the Multiple Choice test that the real Myers-Briggs analysis uses.  Come to think of it, any multiple-choice test has a mechanical element to it, but some tests are more carefully constructed than others.  For instance, such tests as Which Disney Princess Are You?  or What Salad-Dressing Are You? are just for entertainment, and do not serve any useful purpose, and often aren't even funny.

Kay

Excavation2! Helen Archeology

To continue the previous post about Helen manuscripts I have unearthed:  I have to say that finding them is one thing, but going through them is quite another!

So far I have found several threads (I'll put the number here when I finish counting them):

1. The story of 'Helen's' Early Music Festival, a TV event that Helen was responsible for at the end of her Freshman Year.
2. Helen's involvement with the world-famous tennis coach, Gary.  This story, too, is interwoven with a story of a woman called Inez, from Argentina, who invites Helen to her home, and some tense adventures there; stories of Helen's work as a photographer for a men's magazine; Stories of Helen's appearance as a nude dancer at a unusual nightclub in remote Florida, and her long affair with the star of that troupe, Leila.
3. The details of Helen's meeting with Lisa Wallace.  Lisa is a high-school student, the daughter of the President of Helen's undergraduate college, and of Pat Wallace, who gave Helen her first violin, a priceless 17th-century unconverted violin with a Baroque bow.  This story, too, is interwoven with how Helen met Cindy O'Shaughnessy, and how Helen became a singer of Lyric Opera, through singing in The Magic Flute, and The Marriage of Figaro.  This is also the story of how Helen discovered her mother's family, the Johnsons, including her cousins Ingrid, Marika, and Heikki, who appear off and on in numerous stories, most importantly in Helen On the Run.
4. The story of Janet's brief second marriage to Scott Forrester, a pastor in North Carolina.
5. Helen's encounter with a teenager called Michelle Smith, who appears in Helen On the Run as a grown-up woman.  The two Michelles have rather different personalities, and if I publish the story of the youthful Michelle, (which isn't very interesting), I'll have to rewrite it quite heavily.
6. The story of Helen's Christmas Special a few years later.
7. The details of the account contained in Helen at Ballet Camp.  This story is mixed in with the story of Helen's Tennis Camp in the Canada wilds, in a reserve owned by Sylvia Tedesco (also known as "Nurse", since she is the nurse for the tennis camp, in addition to being the owner),  Helen's year-long stay with Sylvia, Helen's pregnancy with twins, who were subsequently stillborn, and Helen's affair with Marsha Moore, the Hollywood movie star.  (BTW, if you find the name Sylvia familiar, it is also the name of Helen's mother, now dead for about 4 years.)  This is also where Helen meets Dr. Nadia Van Der Wert, who ends up being Helen's academic advisor for a number of years, and is hired together with Helen at her job as a professor, before she gives that up.

I enjoyed re-reading the Lisa Wallace / Cindy O'Shaughnessy story so much, I'm getting it ready to publish it independently.  I decided at one time to number the stories in sequence, but at that time everything before Ballet Camp seemed so giddy and un-salvageable that I numbered Ballet Camp 0, in the Helen sequence.  Helen and Lalitha--The Lost Years comes in at 1, and Helen On the Run--The Lost Years at 2, and so on.  So this "prequel" will have to be given a negative number, or just a name, and the tag Helen BackStory.  So this one would be Helen BackStory--Lisa, Cindy, and the Violin.