Loneliness versus Solitude

Posted on October 1, 2011 by John Walters

You can’t write about a subject like this unless you are going through it, or have gone through it.  And why should I be lonely?  I am surrounded by people.  I am almost never
physically alone.  Lately, nonetheless, I have been afflicted with loneliness, often intense loneliness.  Perhaps its because I am going through things in my life that are difficult to share.

Loneliness is like a cancer.  It eats away at you from inside.  It is rooted in desire.  You desire not just companionship, but a certain type of companionship.  It reminds me of my time, many years ago, on the road.  I had frequent, though fleeting, sexual liaisons with those I met in passing, but these relationships did nothing to assuage my loneliness.  Nor did having people around me.  For example, during my time at the firefighting camp in Northern California I was surrounded by all kinds of people, but I felt no kinship, no bond, with any of them.  My loneliness was something deep, something elemental.  I knew not what I sought or what would satisfy it, but I could not rest until I found it.  The loneliness debilitated me as would a disease.  It made me restless, dissatisfied, full of angst and despair, unable to fit in anywhere though I kept searching for a place to belong.

Solitude, on the other hand, is energizing.  Artists, philosophers, priests, prophets, all
seek solitude at some time or other.  Sometimes warriors seek solitude on the eve of battle.  Solitude is a good thing.  It gives calm, perspective, and peace of mind.  It bestows inner strength.  Invariably, if sought with the right motive and under the right circumstances, a person who finds solitude will be better afterwards for it.

But what is the difference between loneliness and solitude?  Merely a twist of the
mind.  And it came to me recently, as I have been struggling with an intense, gut-wrenching feeling of loneliness, that perhaps I could turn my negative loneliness into positive solitude, that is, something to be desired and sought after rather than something to work through and get over with or past.  Often people who crave solitude cannot find it.  Here I am in the position of feeling more alone than I want to feel.  Why not reach out and grasp the touchstone of decision, of free will, and turn my leaden loneliness into the gold of solitude?  After all, I cannot force decisions upon others.  It is only myself I can control, and that imperfectly.  But at least I can choose not to despair, and instead relish the opportunity that has been presented to me.  It will not last.  It never does.  But while I am alone, or at least feel alone, I should make the best of it, not the worst of it.  I will turn my chains into wings, my despair into hope, my tragedy into triumph.  I will not weep for myself, nor for others.  I will contemplate, I will pray, I will plan, I will dream.  In the Book of Proverbs it says, “The righteous man falls seven times and rises up again.”  So I will.  So I will, once again.  And as often as I must.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: The Best from Orbit edited by Damon Knight

Posted on September 25, 2011 by John Walters

“Orbit” was a series of anthologies of original speculative fiction stories edited by Damon Knight in the 60s and 70s.  His aim was to expand the genre and select literary stories that would avoid the stereotypical spaceships and ray guns of pulp science fiction.  The series was quite successful and attracted some of the best writers in the field; the stories themselves won numerous awards.

I myself, as a young writer and avid reader of speculative fiction, followed the “Orbit” series for many years.  I didn’t always like or even understand all the stories, but there were enough gems therein to retain my interest.

I didn’t buy this anthology as an exercise in nostalgia.  In fact, I sought out and
bought this anthology – which after some years I found affordable used on Amazon – mainly due to one of its stories, a story that is in the list of my ten favorite short stories of all time:  “The Big Flash” by Norman Spinrad.  This story is not so easy to find, and I
hadn’t read it in years.  It’s a Cold War story.  The government decides to use
tactical nukes in Vietnam, and to stoke up popular opinion they raise up a rock
group, The Four Horsemen, to promote nuclear warfare.  The gambit “succeeds” far beyond their expectations.  Though it would seem the idea, in these more complex times, would be dated, such is not the case.  The story reads as fresh now as it had forty years ago when I first read it.

Concerning the rest of the stories, as with all anthologies, it is a mixed bag.  Some stories are dated, extremely so.  Some are joke pieces, some are slow and go nowhere.  But most are at least readable, and there are some other gems in the mix, such as “One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty” by Harlan Ellison, “Passengers” by Robert Silverberg, and “Mother to the World” by Richard Wilson.

It’s easy to see as you read through that Damon Knight had a predilection for a certain type of story.  By today’s standards some of his selections might seem odd, but at the
time he was fighting the general stultification and decay rampant in the field.  It was an era in which good literature was regarded with suspicion and taboos were numerous.  “Orbit” was part of the trend in the speculative fiction field which became known as “the new
wave”.  It was a much-needed blast of fresh air, a wake-up call to writers that science fiction and fantasy could be taken seriously as literature and could be written as serious literature.

Nowadays, some of the stories that at the time seemed so radical appear tame, and the literary pretensions of others are no longer considered pretentious.  But overall
there are enough good stories to make it worth the price of admission.  And for me, the Spinrad story alone was worth the long search and the price of the book.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Short Story Author Highlight: James Tiptree, Jr.

Posted on September 18, 2011 by John Walters

Most science fiction enthusiasts know that James Tiptree, Jr. was the pseudonym of Alice Sheldon, an employee of the CIA who killed her ailing husband and then herself back in 1987.  A brilliant biography called “James Tiptree Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon” by Julie Phillips won the National Book Critics Circle Award a few years ago.

Though James Tiptree Jr. is a pseudonym, I will use the name in this essay, as that is how she is know for most of her wonderful writing.  Usually when I list my favorite short story writers I list her at number one.  She wrote a few novels too, but it is in the short story genre where she excelled.  She wrote so many dynamic short stories that it is very difficult to choose just five, which is an arbitrary number to which I have limited myself.  In an essay on my favorite short stories I have already written about “The Women Men Don’t See”, one of her most famous stories, not because I consider it better than the others, but because it was so significant to the field when it first appeared.  Here are five more of her stories that blew me away:

1.  The Girl Who Was Plugged In.  This novelette won a Hugo the year it came out, and for good reason.  It’s a hip, fast-paced satire on advertising, the appeal of superstars, and the loneliness and alienation of the billions of unhip, unattractive ones who adore those that appear in the media.  The ugly P. Burke becomes the lovely ethereal Delphi and enters the world of glamour and riches, only to discover that it too is a world of ugliness, only it is the ugliness of hypocrisy and deceit.  The shattering climax is inevitable but masterfully told.

2.  And I Have Come Upon This Place by Lost Ways.  A group of scientists have come to a far planet to conduct research.  One of them, Evan, doesn’t quite fit in.  He’s too unorthodox; he doesn’t want to follow the rules.  On a high mountain called the Clivorn he spots a strange anomaly, but when he tries to point it out no one will pay any attention to him.  Risking everything to follow his hunch that it is important, he leaves the research ship as it is about to take off for home, fights his way past local aliens who try to stop him from setting foot on the sacred mountain, and climbs up to the summit to discover a strange alien artifact that has been there from beyond memory.  This encapsulated version cannot, of course, capture the power and sense of wonder of the story itself.  It ends in tragedy, as so many of Tiptree’s stories do, but leaves the reader with a sense of the overwhelming vastness of the universe.

3.  On the Last Afternoon.  This is a monster story, but though the monsters are huge and overwhelming and destructive, they are totally indifferent to the human colonists who have crash-landed and are trying to eke out an existence in a jungle clearing at the edge of an ocean on this alien world.  They are like a force of nature, like a hurricane or a tidal wave, but no less lethal to the tiny group of human survivors.  Once the humans realize the creatures are on their way they try to evacuate the vestiges of culture and technology they have managed to preserve from the wreckage.  One old man, Mysha, must risk everything to try to stop them.  The amazing thing about this story is the description of the alien invasion from the sea and the Earthlings’ attempts to stop them.  It’s hard to beat this kind of heart-pounding action writing.  The immense creatures that overwhelm the colony are some of the weirdest, most bizarre aliens ever presented in science fiction literature, and though they act out of instinct and not malevolence they are no less nightmarish and deadly.

4.  The Screwfly Solution.  Alice Sheldon originally published this story under the pseudonym “Racoona Sheldon”, but it was later included in collections by James Tiptree
Jr.  It won a well-deserved Nebula Award.  It’s a dark, creepy tale about a slow-spreading virus of the psyche that comes over men all over the world that causes them to begin to kill women.  At first those susceptible seem to be only the violent and fanatical, but then it
spreads until all women are in danger.  Tiptree frequently wrote about gender issues, and this is one of her most devastating, effective stories on the subject.  In the end, the reader discovers the reason for this wave of murders, but I will not spoil the story for you by revealing it here.

5.  Houston, Houston, Can You Read?  This is another story on the gender issue.  It won both the Hugo and the Nebula.  A spaceship bearing three men circles the sun and somehow ends up in the future, where all men have died in a plague and only women, who reproduce through cloning, remain.  The men come across a spaceship full of women.  At first they are rescued and welcomed, but then the differences between the two cultures
make it difficult and then impossible to get along.  The women come to the conclusion that the men have nothing to contribute that would make it worthwhile to integrate them into
the culture of the future.  Men have become redundant.  Tiptree smears the gender issue in the readers face, but she does it masterfully in the context of a science fiction adventure story, so that the reader is willing to get hit with a reality blast at the same time as she or he is being entertained.

There are other stories too, just as powerful, that I could have included here, such as “The Milk of Paradise”, “A Momentary Taste of Being”, “Slow Music”, and “Love is the Plan, the
Plan is Death”.  I urge you to seek out these stories and read them.  There is a great anthology that includes most of Tiptree’s best stories called”Her Smoke Rose Up Forever”.
It’s a good place to start.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Book Review: Henry Miller: The Paris Years by Brassai

Posted on September 10, 2011 by John Walters

“Brassai” is the pseudonym of Gyula Halasz, a Hungarian photographer who lived in Paris at the same time as Miller did, in the 1930s.  Henry Miller was quite enamored of his photos depicting the streets of Paris, which Brassai published in his first book, “Paris By Night”.  They met often, took long walks together (one of Miller’s favorite activities), ate, drank, and discussed anything and everything.  Brassai, as a result, knew all of the people
that Miller turns into characters in his books, and so is able to provide a fascinating insider’s look into Miller’s writings.

I found this book at the Strand Bookstore in New York, the one that advertises “18 miles of books”, though they neglect to mention that these books are stacked on shelves so high and claustrophobically close that it is difficult even with a high ladder to reach them.  For a book lover, of course, it’s worth the cliff scaling and neck craning and so on, because they really do have an enormous collection of used books.  The adventure started earlier, though, for my son and I, as we couldn’t find it at first and walked block after block in the blistering New York summer sun, baking between the towering buildings.  All part of the thrill.

This book though, the Miller book, was right out on a display table in a large pile.  They must have been remaindered copies; they were on sale for half price.  When I first spotted it, and up until I began to read it long afterwards in the wilds of the village country east of
Thessaloniki, Greece, I thought it was a biography of Henry Miller.  I have long been searching for such a biography, a comprehensive one that would lay bare the many secrets of his life so I could compare the man’s life with his work.  I thought maybe this would be at least a partial one, and figured the illumination of a few years was better than nothing.  Alas, that biography has still not yet been created.

This book by Brassai is not a biography but a series of essays on various aspects of Brassai’s relationship with Miller and on what he knew of Miller due to his association with him.  At first, upon discovering this, I was disappointed, but later when I took the book on its own terms I found much of interest.  The essay on Miller’s second wife June, for example, who provided the impetus to push him to relocate to France and was the
inspiration for the dark, conniving, complex, many-faceted, sexy, deceitful main female characters in several of his works, is alone worth the price of the book.  It’s also fascinating to read about how much trouble it was to get “Tropic of Cancer” published, how it was delayed time and again, how everyone except Miller, even the publisher, was afraid of censorship.  It’s interesting too when Brassai launches into comparisons between fact
and fiction in Miller’s works, bringing out the extreme exaggeration Miller indulged in for the sake of effect.  Brassai also writes of Henry Miller’s inspiration, his “voice”, when he would get into an almost trancelike state and pour forth some of his most effective prose.

In the end, entertaining though this book is, it is not the book I was looking for, and still look for.  I would like to see a detailed, comprehensive biography of Henry Miller by someone who loves the man’s work and has the patience to do the research necessary to separate fact from fiction.  That person is not me, alas.  I can envision the project, but I would not have the patience to see it through.  It would take much time, travel, and financing as well as patience.  But it is a sore need.  Miller is one of the most enigmatic writers of the twentieth century – even more, one of the most enigmatic and powerful writers ever.  His life deserves the attention of a serious study.  Some day soon, I hope, someone will undertake that great work.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Book Review: This Immortal by Roger Zelazny

Posted on September 3, 2011 by John Walters

Roger Zelazny exploded onto the science fiction scene back in the mid-sixties.  Two of his stories won Nebula Awards in 1966, the first year they were ever given:  “He Who Shapes” won the Nebula for best novella, and “The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth” won for best novelette.  In addition, in the same year his novel “This Immortal”, which had appeared in “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction” under the title of “And Call
Me Conrad”, won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel of the year, in a tie with the famous novel “Dune” by Frank Herbert.  Comparisons are inevitable, but I will
reserve them for later in the essay.

For years I have searched for this novel.  It has been long out of print, and unavailable for ordering as a new book from either physical or online bookstores.  And when I had found it used in online bookstores, it was always out of my price range.  Often I wondered why it was not reprinted in the British series of “SF Masterworks”, in which certain other
writers are overrepresented, and now that I have read it, I consider it a disservice that it was not.  Be that as it may, reprint lists are not representative of the general reading public’s taste but rather that of the editors of the series.  But on my last trip to the States, while browsing a small used book store in Seattle I managed to come across a good
copy of the book for the very reasonable price of two dollars.

It’s a short book, and that is unusual these days.  Most science fiction and fantasy books you see on the shelves are weighty tomes of one hundred to one hundred fifty thousand
words – more words for your buck, the publishers probably imagine.  But it was not always so.  Many of the classic award-winning novels of past decades were of shorter, more manageable length.  You can tell a great story in about fifty thousand words; it can be lean and tight, without extraneous stuffing to make it look fatter on a bookshop’s shelf.  So it is with this book.  There’s no fluff or fat or add-ons or ornaments.  Every word counts.

This book is a hell of a lot of fun.  In the beginning it seems a bit confusing and you wonder where it’s going.  But little by little Zelazny unfolds his story and you see that it is inevitable.  It’s complex and exciting, full of wild ideas and poetry and mythology.  Zelazny’s writing style was unusual and idiosyncratic; nobody wrote like he did.  I use past tense because he did not write long – in 1995 he died of cancer at the age of fifty-eight.

“This Immortal” exemplifies “typical” Zelazny, if anything Zelazny wrote can be called typical:  his use of mythological themes; his ability to set vivid scenes with minimal, starkly poetic description; a blend of heart-pounding science fiction action/adventure and deep intellectual acuity; brisk, snappy dialog; and a cast of interesting and diverse characters, of which the main one almost always seems more than a bit like Zelazny himself:  tall, lean, erudite, well able to defend himself, and habituated to cigarettes and alcohol.  It all makes for a great ride.

Now, at last, for the comparisons of this novel with “Dune”.  Uh – in fact, you can’t compare the two.  Contrast, perhaps, but not compare.  “Dune” is much more traditional:  a huge, complex, world-building book.  It is a wonderful book and just missed the list I previously published of my ten favorite novels of all time.  But it is nothing like “This Immortal”.  It is three or four times the length (if not more), has many more characters, and spans a much greater length of time.  And it is, as I mentioned, more traditional,
more classic.  “This Immortal” is innovative, brisk, flippant, seemingly almost off-the-cuff, as it were – more in the spirit and style of what was then being termed “the new
wave” in speculative fiction, a genre-shattering attempt of certain writers to burst out of narrow pulp confines into the realms of serious literature.  I like both “Dune” and “This Immortal”, and I think it was a great move that the Hugo Award that year was shared between them.  There is room for great diversity in speculative fiction.

I highly recommend “This Immortal”.  It’s entertaining, thoughtful, poetic, exciting, and stimulating.  I only hope you don’t have to wait as long as I did to find a copy.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Book Review: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles

Posted on August 27, 2011 by John Walters

During the summer I often like to tackle really big books, often history books.  This summer I took on a book that has already received a lot of acclaim:  it has won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Award.  These massive historical biographies are valuable not only for the insight they give into the lives of the famous people being highlighted, but also into the era and milieu in which they lived.  So it is with this
book.

I can’t say that it reads like a novel, for a novel would not go into such detail about peripheral people, geography, economic and political history, and so on.  But for a
work of nonfiction that goes into great detail on its subject it is very readable and fast-paced.  Part of the reason is the fact that the subject is so fascinating, and part the author’s
skill in storytelling.

Vanderbilt truly did live an amazing, epic life.  He started out in steamships making runs from Staten Island to New York, then expanded his operations to include all of New
England.  Later, at the time of the California gold rush, he pioneered a steamship route from New York to Nicaragua, across Nicaragua, and then from there to San Francisco.  For a time he went into trans-Atlantic steamers as well.  And finally, he gave up the steamship business to concentrate on what was then state-of-the-art transportation:  the growing network of railroads.  On the way, he became one of the richest men in America and, in comparable values of the dollar then and now, one of the richest men ever in the United States.

He was a brash, bold, foul-mouthed, uneducated man, quick to seize opportunities or to punish enemies who got in his way.  The book chronicles the lives of many of the
important East Coast businessmen of the era, as well as Vanderbilt’s relationships with his personal family, which were often stormy.  As I read about his personal and professional
life I found myself double-minded in my reaction.  On the one hand, it is easy to see that in
many ways he was a reprehensible character:  selfish, self-serving, neglectful of others, domineering, vengeful, ready to forsake anything to pursue the gleam of wealth; on the other hand he was one-of-a-kind:  intelligent, complex, resourceful, and I found myself cheering him on in his battles with his many enemies and rivals.  It is a complement
to the skill of the writer, because no life is simple, and it is far easier to break everything down into black and white than to illuminate all the shades of gray as well.

Apart from the story of the man himself, the economics of the era and the growth of modern economic theory, the shift in the politics of government before, during, and after the Civil War, and how various modes of transport assumed such historical importance, what I found particularly interesting was the insight the book provided in the growth of New York from a small dirty village in the late 1700s to the great center of the United States economy that it became.  Last summer I visited New York and spent a few days wandering the streets of Manhattan and taking it all in, and it is truly intimidating and awe-inspiring.  Perhaps someone who has lived there or visited it frequently might be more jaded and see things differently, but for me New York was fascinating and I enjoyed reading how it got the way it is.  That’s the fun of a gigantic, well-researched, well-written history book like this one:  it can be enjoyed on many levels, and offers insight far beyond that of its primary subject.

So yes, I would recommend this book.  I realize that many people are intimidated by big books like this one, but there is no reason to be.  I have found when preparing to tackle a book of this length that it pays to not even worry about it.  Just start on page one and read a few pages, then a few more and a few more and so on.  Soon, if the book is worthwhile, you will find yourself well into it and hooked.  After that there is no problem continuing.  Personally I hate to put a book down once I have begun it; I do so only on very rare occasions.  So I am very careful about what I read.  I research ahead, read favorites lists, read reviews, read articles, read awards lists, so that when I finally buy or borrow a book and sit down to begin I know exactly what I am getting into.  That’s why I have begun writing reviews, so I can tip off other readers as to what might or might not be worthwhile in the world of books.  Of course, in the end a lot of it boils down to individual taste, but this particular book is tried and proven by many, and I add my voice to theirs.  It’s a good book.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Beach Bars and Pornographic Music

Posted on August 20, 2011 by John Walters

Summer time here in Greece is beach time.  During the hottest, most popular weeks in July and August the cities half-empty and everyone heads for the coast.

My wife and youngest son and I go on the weekends, since she works and doesn’t have an official summer holiday.  We usually drive about an hour to an hour and a half to a quiet uncrowded stretch of beach where there’s plenty of soft sand and the water is slightly cool and crystal clear, and we spend several hours there on Saturdays and Sundays swimming and sunbathing.

One hot day after our swim we decided to have a coffee with some of her colleagues at a popular beach bar, though we usually avoid such places because of the noise and the crowds.  The parking area was packed, a vast dusty wasteland of gleaming metal
baking in the heat.  After we found a spot the attendant urged us to move a bit to create more space; people were still arriving.

The first thing that hits you upon entering the bar area is the overwhelming noise.  They had huge speakers set up blasting out ear-shattering music, whatever hits were currently
being played on pop music stations.  The next thing you notice is the crowd:  umbrellas
and lounge chairs and small round white plastic tables interspersed among a vast sea of flesh.  The patrons were mostly young people.  There were a few kids, and a smattering of old or middle-aged folks, like my wife’s co-workers.  People everywhere sat about sipping the expensive drinks and – this was the strangest thing – many of them didn’t seem to be happy at all.  One would have thought they had gone there to have fun, and ostensibly that was the motivation, but they had also gone there to display themselves as wares for the
taking to the right individual.  Some were joyous, of course, drinking and laughing and enjoying the sun and sea, but these were people who already had partners or good friends and who were not looking for pickups.  Those who had come with the hope of finding something more than they had come with, someone special perhaps, were tense and expectant, casting glances here and there, unable to cut loose and have fun because they hoped for that which they didn’t have – and there were a lot of such people.

The beach itself was beautiful:  soft sand and clean warm water; but covered over as it was by this raucous mass of humanity it lost much of its appeal too.  There was a certain sadness in contemplating what it must have been like before this chaos descended upon it.

Be that as it may, we had a good time chatting and swimming, though under other circumstances we would never have chosen to spend our time at the beach in such a place.

That night, though, I couldn’t sleep.  One of the giant speakers had been very close to the place my wife’s colleagues had set up, and the music had profoundly upset my equilibrium.  I like music, but I have my preferences, as I’m sure you do, and I can’t stand it too loud.  But something else bothered me about this music – something that at first I couldn’t put my finger on.  Not all of it, but some of the most popular songs that I had heard over and over not only there at the beach bar but other places over the radio.  Then it hit me:  these songs were pornography.  They spoke of admiring bodies and then
wanting to have sex, of arousing a woman so she gets wet, of getting excited by the whips and chains of sadomasochism.  I’m no prude; there’s plenty of mention of sex in my memoirs and stories.  But these songs completely divorced the sex act from emotion and spirit, and that isn’t natural.  Most of us enjoy sex, even long for it if we don’t get enough of it; but sex isn’t merely a physical act but a form of communication, spirit to spirit.  That’s
why porn films are ultimately unsatisfactory:  they reduce the act to its basest elements, gutting it of motivation and emotion, as if the only point of it all were to “get off”.  These songs are the same.  They leave a sour taste in the psyche, an emptiness, and a twisting feeling that something is wrong – the kind of feeling you get when you know that someone is lying to you but you can’t prove it.

It made me recall the music of bygone years, the music I grew up with.  Yeah, okay, you can call me an old fart if you want, but the fact is that there was real heart to a lot of that music.  Not all of it to be sure: some of it glorified drugs and the sex act back then too.  But many songs spoke of things that mattered:  real love, the need for social change, and so on.  I don’t hear any popular songs these days that even try to say something significant.  Have musicians dumbed down emotionally to the point that they are unable to uplift or enlighten but merely appeal to the basest instincts?

Hey, don’t get me wrong.  I like sex too, as almost all of us do – but not as a purely mechanical act completely devoid of that spirit which illuminates us and makes us shine forth as unique individuals.  These songs take away that wonderful uniqueness and render us as base flesh; they imply that if our flesh is not attractive (and most, at least at first glance, is not) then we are not worthy.  But we are all worthy of respect and of love, both those who are pleasing to the eye and those who are not.  Would that there were some songs that gave us that message.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Basketball as a Metaphysical Experience

Posted on August 11, 2011 by John Walters

In the past I have dreamed about playing basketball.  Sometimes it is in a challenging situation, pitted against others; sometimes I am alone and am only practicing.  But
usually it boils down to one shot, and that shot is not an easy shot; perhaps it is from a long distance, perhaps it involves intricate moves to accomplish – but whatever is involved in that particular situation, invariably I make the shot, I wake up, I remember that I have been playing the game and…  Well, I have to admit that I am not always able to equate what happens in dreams with what happens in real life.

I don’t remember when I first started playing basketball, but I remember playing it for hour upon hour in the alley behind our house when I was a teen in high school.  We had a
basket rigged up on the side of our garage there in the alley, and the odd thing was that the alley was not level but slanted, so that on one side the basket seemed much higher to shoot at than on the other side.  It didn’t matter though.  It was easy to take such a peculiarity as a matter of course.  Because I did not play basketball out there in the alley to prepare to help a team win.  No.  I played for myself.  I played because so many other things in my life were not complete or did not make sense.  I played because I could go out there, outside the house, outside, as it were, the usual order of things, and better myself in some way.  I could work on my balance, my strength, my coordination.  I could allow that which was unacceptable in my life to slough away, to forsake it in a sense, at least for a time, to put it aside for something that was more important.  And as I concentrated on what I was doing, as I focused my attention on perfecting the art of basketball, at another level my mind could wander, but it would not wander to the mundane but to the sublime.  It would go where it was not able to go in everyday life; it would think thoughts it would not normally
think; it would soar to places that would not normally be able to be reached.

Of course, I was not always alone.  Sometimes my brothers were there, and sometimes neighbor kids.  When my brothers were around I’d play them games of one-on-one or free throw shoots or twenty-one, and I’d always win because I was the oldest and I practiced more than they did.  There were two kids up the alley who had a basket on their garage too; sometimes for variety I’d go and play there.  One boy, Ric, was my age and the other, Vic, was slightly older.  We’d play two-on-one, Ric and I against Vic, and Ric and I would always win because we had the advantage of being able to pass off; Vic couldn’t stand
to lose and he’d try like a son-of-a-bitch to catch up, but he could seldom come close.  Their family was considered a little odd because their dad was a sailor and built boats and walked with a funny limp; in addition, they were the only ones in the neighborhood without a TV set.  But basketball was a common denominator that could break through all that.  Anyone could play basketball, even eccentrics, especially eccentrics, I might say, as long as they weren’t too proud to lose.  And if they did not want to play, they could stand around and watch.  I am reminded, in particular, of the kid from the end of the block,
Daniel I think his name was, who occasionally strolled by and stopped to talk but never participated.  He was slim, soft-spoken, polite, and struck me at the time as fairly level-headed.  He was also slightly younger than me, but it didn’t matter anymore, as at the time I was past teen-hood; I’d moved out of the house on my own and back in several times; I made my own decisions and expected others to do the same.  This fellow, Daniel, who I’d only known in the past as a classmate of one of my younger brothers, would stop and chat and then stroll on, like a ripple in a lake due to a falling leaf or a fish jumping, and the surface would calm again and it was as if it had never happened.  But later I found out that he, while still a young man, in his parents’ house at the end of the alley, put a gun to his head and blew his brains out – and I never had a clue why, certainly not from his polite, soft-spoken, sincere conversations.  Perhaps he never consciously considered it before he did it; perhaps what was bugging him was churning around on the inside yet never coming to the surface even in his own mind.  I do not speak facetiously or flippantly when I say that perhaps he should not have just passed by as an observer; perhaps he should have joined in and become an active participant; perhaps he should have grabbed the ball, focused his attention, taken aim, and let fly, not just once but over and over, until everything else sloughed away, including the cares and burdens that he carried in the deep recesses of his subconscious where they were rotting away and turning cancerous.

I would go out alone anytime, in any weather.  It was almost always drizzling or outright
raining in Seattle, so one could not be too bothered by it or one would never do anything.  In sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers I would grab the ball, get out there, and start shooting.  When the weather was extremely cold I’d have to move fast to warm up, because a coat impeded movement, so I never wore a coat when I played basketball.  Even when the street was slick with ice I’d shiver and shoot, shiver and shoot, until my blood started pumping faster and I’d loosen up and wouldn’t notice the cold anymore.  The slanting of the alley was useful in the rain because puddles wouldn’t collect on the ground, but still
I’d become spattered with muddy water; when the ground was only slightly damp a
dirty residue would cling to the ball and get on my hands so that they’d turn almost black.  These slight inconveniences were small prices to pay.

Once I tried joining the high school team.  I figured that had to be the ultimate goal of it all:  to wear a real basketball uniform and appear in official games.  But I couldn’t unwind.  I didn’t have the loose confidence I felt when I played alone.  It was like selling my soul, like turning traitor.  I ended up as a benchwarmer, showing up for the practices yet never appearing in the games.  Finally, though, during one of the final games of the season our team was so far ahead they decided to let the substitutes in.  I got in the clear and began dribbling down the court, chased by an opposing player.  It was an easy lay-up, but I missed so badly that though the other player had never touched me the referee called a foul.  My first free throw didn’t even come close to the hoop; it fell far short.  The second
bounced around and around and finally went in:  that was the one point I ever made in an organized game, and that cured me forever of wanting to participate in organized sports.  Playing alone was a grand, glorious, liberating experience; playing on a team for the glory of God-knows-what was a degrading, humiliating experience – and I think it is so not only for me but for all, even for the ones who attain to stardom.  What do they really accomplish when they win a game?  What do they do it for? Fame?  Money?  These things are so shallow when compared with the profundity of playing for its own sake, every shot
a life-changing experience; I might even say an artistic experience in the true sense of the word.  Such an experience can keep you sane in an insane world.

Later, much later, during my literary wanderings, during the time of my life on the road, I took a temporary job in a firefighting camp on the Northern California coast.  I was
surrounded by redwood trees as well as redneck people.  The rest of the crew was ex-military men, martial arts experts, gang members, and so on.  They were certainly not the type of people to take kindly to a pacifistic poet.  So to put on a show of bravado I started lifting weights; in addition, as I would everywhere I went, when I had free time I’d go out and shoot baskets.  The weightlifting gave me extra strength, and the amount of time on my hands gave me a lot of practice.  A few of the guys caught a glimpse of me popping them in regularly from thirty or forty feet out, and after that nobody would play basketball with me anymore.  They figured they didn’t have much chance of winning, so they didn’t want to risk their macho standing in the camp community.  That was fine by me.  It made them keep their distance and overlook some of my obvious defects for which they would otherwise have harassed me. And once again, basketball was one of the things that stabilized me in a difficult situation.  I could get out there and concentrate on what I was doing and forget about the people I was surrounded by, my frustration with my writing, and my incessant agonizing loneliness.  That was the worst thing:  the loneliness.  There at that camp in the middle of nowhere I think I called every girl whose number I had, even ones in France and Belgium and other faraway places, looking for some connection, some offer to come in off the road and stay awhile.  That offer never came and I left the camp as alone as I’d come, but at least when I played basketball I could forget it all; I could concentrate on the ball and the hoop and my balance and form and aim, and I could think otherworldly thoughts, harmonized thoughts, thoughts that came together in order and symmetry.

Recently I was reminded of all this when I went across the street to shoot a few baskets with one of my young sons.  He spotted his older brother nearby and ran off to him, and for a while I was left alone on the court with the basketball.  It was a warm evening, but there was a slight breeze.  The sun was about to set and the sky was deep blue above and flaming red to the west.  I began to shoot one shot after another, concentrating on what I was doing, consciously considering my balance, position, angle, flick of wrist, strength of jump, and so on.  Sometimes I missed and sometimes I didn’t, but that wasn’t very important.  As I kept it up, though, more and more started going in; the whole process became more automatic.  My mind began to drift, and I began to recall those times in the alley, at the firefighting camp, and in many other places when basketball would be a way to ditch whatever was bugging me and grab a few moments of eternity.

I don’t have the strength I used to have, and I never will again.  Sometimes I feel the years
weighing me down, leaving me exhausted, disillusioned, depressed.  Sometimes I’m so busy and so laden down with responsibility that I wouldn’t be able to grab a basketball and shoot a few hoops even if I wanted to.  But those glimpses I have had of something that is anything but petty, anything but mundane, anything but mediocre have made me a better man than I was before.  And if any of you readers are skeptical, if any of you think that it is ludicrous to ascribe such greatness to a simple act of tossing a ball through a metal hoop, I suggest that you give it a try.  But alone, remember, all alone.  And not just for a few minutes but over and over and over again.

On the other hand, let’s face it:  I’m not naïve enough to think that basketball is the way to salvation. For you it might be something different.  Eternity is a big place; it can be gotten at from many angles.  And there is the point as well that when I’d put down the ball and leave the court, all that I’d temporarily forgotten or forsaken was waiting for me again.  But a part of that experience remained, and will always remain.

Posted in Memoir, Travel | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Endings

Posted on August 6, 2011 by John Walters

First the disclaimer:  this is not an essay on writing, though I may use various aspects of writing as an example.  If you want to write, write.  Go ahead, just get started.  Do it any way you want and write about anything you want.  Write fiction or nonfiction, science fiction or mystery, history or memoir.  It’s all up to you.  Words are your tools and they can be fashioned as you will.

The idea did come about as I was struggling with a piece of writing, a short story to be precise.  I decided, in one of my fits of arbitrary goal-setting, that in four weeks I
would write four stories.  Okay, as far as it goes, but I should know myself by this time and within such defined parameters is not how my mind usually works well.  I’m not saying that goal-setting is not a good thing, at least in theory.  The problem is, it can be constricting.  A story, or any piece of writing, is like a living thing, at least to a writer.  Have you ever tried to scream at a child to get it to mature faster?  Doesn’t work, does it?

The first story went okay.  I managed to get an idea, flesh it out, and see it through to
completion.  After that I set it aside.  I always do.  I like to wait a while and check out my work after I’ve had a chance to cool down and I can see it objectively.  That way I can catch obvious mistakes and inconsistencies more easily.  But this week’s story, the second one, started out with a bang, got about two thousand words in, and bogged down.  I got all
frustrated, with the deadline and all, and the realization that I had other writing work to do as well.  So I made a monumental decision:  to set it aside unfinished.  I’ve done it before, and usually when I come back to these unfinished stories after a few weeks or months or years they almost write themselves and become better than I could have
imagined at the time I composed the beginning.

Now you’re probably saying, wait a minute!  You said this essay wasn’t about writing and
you’ve done nothing but talk about writing until now.  True.  But what I really want to talk about is the inevitable disappointment of the quick fix.

Worthwhile things take time to accomplish.

I’m not saying that everything has to take a lot of time or it’s no good.  That’s not true, of
course.  Good things can be done quickly.  If I remember it correctly, Harlan Ellison wrote his famous story, “Repent Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman” in a day.  Cordwainer Smith wrote the classic, “The Game of Rat and Dragon” in a day.

There I go, giving writing examples again, and science fiction to boot.  What to do?

On the other hand, for example, Harlan Ellison, at the 1973 Clarion West writing workshop, read us the beginning of his award-winning story “Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans”, and it was over a year later before it was completed and published.

Good things take time.

So I leave my story incomplete, without trepidation or despair, the weekend having arrived and with no more time to do anything about it, and I will get back to it later.  In the meantime my subconscious will have been working on it, and I will have lived more life and be better prepared to continue it.

Sometimes you have to do that with your kids.  Maybe they need to live more life, to mature more, before they can realize your, or their, expectations.  Sometimes you have to do that with relationships of friends or lovers:  if you try to fix it too abruptly or too roughly, you might kill it instead.  The best is often to relax, back off, let it be, and it will work itself out.  Not always, but sometimes.

Sometimes you have to power your way through something, sometimes not.  One aspect of wisdom is knowing the difference.

Posted in On Writing, Parenting | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Love Children: A Novel by John Walters – Now Available!

Posted on July 31, 2011 by John Walters

My first novel, “Love Children”, is now available in various electronic formats on Amazon and Smashwords.

The Amazon link is here:  http://www.amazon.com/Love-Children-A-Novel-ebook/dp/B005DPMF5U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312132795&sr=1-1

The Smashwords link is here:  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/75295

The print edition will be available later this year.  I decided to go ahead and have it published electronically because most of my sales are electronic anyway.  In addition, the book was completely formatted and ready and the only thing missing was the cover, which will still take some time to complete.  I decided to make it available with a temporary cover, but when the final cover is ready, if you have already bought the book, let me know and I’ll send you a copy of the final cover.  In the meantime, it’s a great story for mature readers, full of empathy, expanded awareness, telepathy, sex, LSD, hippies, aliens both benevolent and malevolent, and a psychic battle to save the world.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment