Cologne, then and now...

This is just a tiny detail from the amazing, but still blackened facade of Cologne Cathedral. I thought those two figures on the left were quite unusual for medieval sculpture. Slowly, it dawned on me that they're very different from their neighbors and must be modern.

When I told my father I was going to Cologne, he said he'd last been there in 1954 on a school trip, during which he'd stayed in a youth hostel in an old bomb shelter at the foot of Cologne Cathedral. It's not there now, but I went into a bookshop and browsed through a book of photographs of Cologne in 1945... It was nothing but a pile of rubble around the Cathedral which was still standing. In one picture I could see that the part of the Cathedral adjacent to this was blown out, but it was too fuzzy to show whether the original sculptures were broken then.

The consequence of the WWII bombing is that Cologne is quite a modern city, but very pleasant to be in, with a large pedestrian district and promenade along the Rhine.

Still not scared...

I found a second piece of anxious art about the world out there in Brussels: Marie-Jo Lafontaine's When a Child Was Still a Child (War, Religion, Dreams). Made in 1950 but it could have been last week, so whatever a child was then, they probably still are. In the 'Dream' panel, the little boy is looking at a globe, but here, the beam got in the way. I liked the interaction with the architecture anyway.

Photographed in the Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts.

Out into the world...

London -> Brussels.... I've never been to Brussels before, but it's the generic European city foreshadowed by everyone who has. Still, I keep finding hidden treasures in it, like this tapestry in Brussels Cathedral. It's called Angoisse du Monde (The Fear of the World) by N. de Montalembert, and it has a surprisingly Asiatic feel for a Christian piece, with all those eyes and lips. Fear of the world must be in the mind of the beholder, because this work of art made me feel exhilarated, not afraid.

I like photographing art in its natural setting, so I actually rather like the cathedral windows reflecting in the top.

Get out the vote!

While the Hugo controversy rages over the Internet, there is also the minor matter of a national election in Britain. Fortunately, the parties are all so boring there is no possibility of voting on anything except policy and political strategy.

I got interested by this Guardian article about political apathy among the young because it also mentioned 3 sites which try to match your policy preferences with a party. I'd already pretty much decided who I wanted to vote for, and wondered if the sites would turn up the same answer.

Vote Match has me bang to rights, with an 81% match to my party of choice, although my second choice party has a 79% match.

PositionDial forgot to ask where I was voting from and matched me with Plaid Cymru (hello Wales!) and the SNP (hello Scotland!). It's suggested 3rd and 4th choices were the same as VoteMatch's with 84% and 80% for the same two parties in the same order.

I didn't manage to get through the Vote for Policies survey. I particularly didn't appreciate being asked me to prefer whole slates of policies right from the start. When I refused to prefer any of them, it 'threatened' me that it was going to take 50 minutes to complete the survey, then tried again to get me to pick a slate.

After all that, I get to enter the ballot box knowing the party I picked really does represent my beliefs. Incidentally, my vote will be partly strategic. I know darn well my second choice party is going to win this seat - and as my preferences are so close, it doesn't worry me much. Trouble is, I think my second choice party needs a major kick up the backside to keep them on track with their program. I'm hoping a shift towards my first choice party will either a) give them the warning they need and/or b) build the strength of my first choice party to the point where they can take over. I really don't care which.

Now, back to the more serious matter of who should receive an award for contributions to the field of science-fiction/fantasy in the shape of a small rocket.

Hugos versus Nebulas

No contest.

Darn, but the Hugos have a flat, insipid packet this year. I don't mind reading stuff I wouldn't have thought of reading by myself, but this takes the biscuit.

Oh yeah, that's because it was pre-selected for me by a sub-group(s) instead of emerging in the usual, rather more organic way. Congratulations guys, you proved that organized campaigning breaks the system in more ways than one.

The Nebula packet looks quite interesting and varied though. It even seems to have included The Three Body Problem, a book widely agreed could have united the various factions of SF fandom and won fair and square, had the Sad Puppies not done what they did.

I'm going to read the Nebula packet instead.

Since I already paid to be part of the Hugos, I'm going to vote for organized campaigning below NO AWARD.

This week: 5/4/15

• I think I might have done some work earlier on in the week, but what with it being Eastercon, that's all forgotten now.
  Eastercon, what was that like?!!!
  
  It was fun. I've learned to do cons, I just go with whatever I think would be the most fun thing to do next. Like spontaneously wandering down the road to find a hotel that still had rooms in it, after deciding that a two-hour commute across London is not fun. Actually, finding the hotel was less fun than going to the bar, to a talk, or for a chat, but it made future fun possible.
  
  
• So, speaking of fun, on the evening the Social Injustice Warriors crashed the Hugos, I was in said hotel room with Mr Fenwick, when he suddenly announced: 'The Jews are a stiff-necked people!'
  
  Now, I have seen what happens to people who unwisely joke about their Jewish partners in public, so for the public record I DID NOT offer any comment on this statement, however obviously biased towards a single data point any such comments would have been. Instead, I said, 'You what?'
  
  'It says so in this book.'
  
  'Mr Fenwick, why are you reading the Bible?'
  
  (For so he appeared to be doing. Secretly I was shocked, because I couldn't remember reading anything like that in the Bible and I have quite a good memory. As it turns out, it was a case of mistaken identity.)
  
  'Because,' said Mr Fenwick, 'We are at an SF convention.'
  
  (Actually he didn't say that but he should have done, so being a writer, I helped him along a bit.)
  
  What he said is: 'They sought for things they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble.'
  
  'What is this 'it'?' I asked, but this much must be credited to the book's thesis, that even after a detailed perusal of the paragraph, Mr Fenwick was unable to answer my question.
  
  The moral of the story is that if you pick a hotel at random, it may turn out to be a Mormon establishment, where you will be subjected not only to the Gideon's Bible, but also to the Book of Mormon, for example these charming passages from Jacob 4:14.
  
  Where's the Twitter storm, that's what I want to know?
  Oh yeah, busy with the Hugos, is it?
  
  

• At first I thought I wasn't going to find any new people to read at Eastercon, although I knew I was going to meet Aliette de Bodard whose next book The House of Shattered Wings is already on my to-read list. Then I found a whole load of new people to read, including practically the entire list at Elsewhen Press. They're an independent publisher with a progressive approach to not killing trees print-on-demand, and a tendency to let their authors be eclectic and idiosyncratic. Also Susan Bartholomew who is going to be writing about one of my favorite legendary people, Melusine. And a bunch of free books, I know not what they are.
  
  
• I put out feelers for interest among independent writers to organize 'something' and possibilities for what might be organized. The answer is that 'something' will almost certainly happen eventually, if and when someone inputs the right amount of energy. That someone might be me. I'm currently counting my energy reserves to see if it is or not.
  
  
• Right now, I have no energy reserves at all, which is typical for the day after a con. I need to sit in a darkened room on my own and do nothing.
  
  
• As at Loncon, the subject of debate which stresses me out is the one surrounding cultural property and cultural appropriation. This is because I have Views. You know how it is. Possibly, I should write them down, but it's a multi-post job and I have no energy. So that's it for now.

This week: 29/3/15

• Due to various demands and responsibilities, I’m in that horrible territory known as three-day-week land. Looks like it may go on for some time and trying to work through it just makes me burn out faster. I don’t like it.
• Anyway, I had a wild weekend looking at art by Matt Stokes. One of my friends, Charlie Seber, is at the heart of a show called Madman in a Lifeboat. It’s part of a multi-media installation which I explained to my daughter as being like an SF story (about the movement known as the Truth Reality Activists). Instead of reading a book, you put the story together from a ‘museum display’. I found the script of the film at the heart of this show very funny right from the start so it was exciting to see it all put together.
  Then we drove across London (aaargh!) to see Cantata Profana which consists of these heavy metal dudes getting it on. I thought it was brilliant. The first time I watched it I laughed, the second time I got into it, the third time, if my well-wishers hadn’t dragged me away, I would have been banging my head on the walls. It’s in the oldest concrete church in Britain, no longer a church of course.
• So then we went to see Studio Ghibli’s Tale of the Princess Kaguya on Sunday night at the cinema. It's not something that should be seen lightly by any couple whose only child is a beautiful pale-skinned daughter with long dark hair. Like us. Kaguya's life starts well, but her father thinks he knows what's best for her, he really does, and the results are appalling.  I think we all cried, but it is very beautiful, and very, very well observed. We think it's quite subversive of all kinds of traditional values, perhaps a bit belatedly. The original story is here.
• Our daughter has now gone off for her Easter holiday with her grandparents, assuring us that like Kaguya herself, she is returning to her true home on the moon. We have asked her to bring back some cheese.
• I'm trying to read too much at once, but I don't care. Discovered the desperately sleazy tale of author Benjanun Sriduangkaew's previous activities and was shocked into reading their book immediately since it was on my list. It should have been Asian mythology week here, clearly, but Scale-Bright wasn't really up to it (though it had some good points). I'm finishing up Palace of Illusions, a version of the Mahabharata story from the point of view of Draupadi and it's a million times superior. The original story behind Scale-Bright is cool though.
• It's been blustery.