04-21-11:Jeff and Ann VanderMeer Chat With Terry Bisson at SF in SF on March 12, 2011
"For me, it's a way of bringing people together."
—Ann VanderMeer
Well, of course it is! Reading is the most intimate connection two people can have this side of sex. And you don't need to be in the same room, or even know one another personally to do it. But when you read a book, the author is in your mind and you are in the author's mind. I do not think you can get much more together than that!
Of course, Ann VanderMeer was not talking about the reading experience, but about bringing internationally-based writers together. That in itself is a pretty amazing talent. The drive that she brings to Weird Tales is significant. Sure, she is definitely leaving the weird in Weird Tales, even while she is using it to forge a new sort of world "litrachur," a "litrachur" that is deeply artistic, socially relevant — and here's the best part — fun to read.
Now, you can thank Jeff as well, at least if monsters constitute part of your vision of weird — and fun. But Jeff also has a very serious side and he, too understands the long-reaching literary merit of the work he and his wife are doing.
04-20-11:Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (sort of) Read at SF in SF on March 12, 2011
"There had to be a two-page spread of a flaming submarine."
—Ann VanderMeer
Leave it to Ann and Jeff VanderMeer to take the not-so-stolid setting of SF in SF (after all this is Science Fiction in San Francisco) and do something really weird with it. Not surprisingly what they did involved art, technology and gumption. And as I write this, some time later, I realize that the VanderMeers have made a career out of gumption. They take chances, and more often than not, they succeed.
The VanderMeers were in town for FogCon, presumably a convention about using insect de-foggers as a means of ridding one's self of what seems to be an epidemic of bedbugs sweeping the nation. While I know this sort of epidemic is a problem, and particularly for traveling writers, the idea that there would be a "FogCon" is rather strange to me, but so be it.
I guess I should have found it strange as well that their presentation concentrated on literature and not the serious business of insect killing, but that's the charm of the VanderMeers. They have an amazing capacity to multi-task, as demonstrated by the many literary works they described in the "coming soon" part of their presentation. It is possible that they were using a subtle fogger during the presentation, lulling the audience with a mildly poisonous gas that caused us to have a sort of group hallucination; images on the screen, the tentacles that Jeff brandished from beneath his armpits during one part of the gig, the time that what appeared to be a bat fluffed up out of Ann's hair, only to simply drop dead when she pointed a finger at it.
04-19-11:Jeff VanderMeer Interviewed at SF in SF on March 12, 2011
"I don't see monsters as necessarily, by definition, an evil thing."
—Jeff VanderMeer
Welcome to the club Jeff! But then, you're not just a member here, but probably one of the owners. The problem with monsters, so far as I'm concerned is what I'd call "The Jaws Effect." That is, that all monsters must conform to the limitations set down by a memorable quote from Jaws, a middling monster movie at best: "Mr. Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine."
When you reduce monsters down to simple eating machines, then you lose vital opportunities for the characterization of the alien and the grotesque. Which is a shame, to my mind, because if you take a couple of steps back, humans are both very alien and very grotesque.
Jeff VanderMeer sort of seems to understand this. He surely realizes the literary implications, and as a result, you get 'Monstrous Creatures' and VanderMeer's own sense of monsters. When it comes to monsters in the regular sense, VanderMeer is your man, no question about it.
But the Man has a pretty significant monster growing on his own back, one he has regular conversations with and about, never realizing the monstrous nature or intent of the critter. He and I had a lovely discussion at SF in SF on March 12 about his monstrous schedule.
VanderMeer is like a literary queen alien, leaving eggs everywhere that incubate into projects that he ends up managing and managing well, but at some point they must actually eat his brain. Perhaps his brain grows back quickly at night. I can imagine he goes home after an event like SF in SF, or back to his hotel room, only to see the smooth sides of his skull collapse.
"You've got to show them something else when they turn the corner."
—Paul McComas
The first thing you're going to notice is that Paul McComas is not just a writer; he's a performer and it is evident from the get-go that this seeps into all of his art. Writers are often remote from their readers, in that they need never connect personally with the reader.
But McComas is a musician and a performer, and he does need to connect. It makes his writing — and his interview — a lot more fun. Think of it as rock and roll science fiction. And horror. And humor.
In point of fact, we're talking about something considerably closer to my heart, Chiller! This Los Angeles-based show ran on Saturday afternoons, right after The Outer Limits. Now here's the funny thing: Chiller! was my introduction to Francis Ford Coppola. They must have run his Dementia 13 about 13 times a year.
05-16-12: Commentary : Mark Sundeen Pays Out 'The Man Who Quit Money' : Over the Edges
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Interview with Mark Sundeen and Daniel Suelo : "What would happen if we actually practiced this stuff?"-Daniel Suelo
05-15-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War' : Impure Life
05-08-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat' : Reading in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Phone Interview with Mark Sundeen : "...over the years, I had heard through my friends that he had stopped using money and was living in a cave..."
04-30-12: Commentary : Christopher Moore Follows 'Sacré Bleu' : A Story in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Christopher Moore : "...it often isn't efficient to tell a story in chronological order..."
04-27-12: Commentary : Lisa Lutz on 'Trail of the Spellmans' : Meta-Fiction is Fun
Agony Column Podcast News Report: SF in SF from February 11, 2012 : Panel Discussion Moderated by Terry Bisson and Interviews with Rudy Rucker, K. W. Jeter, and Jay Lake
04-26-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Emmanuel Carrere 'The Adversary' : The Enemy Within
04-23-12: Commentary : T. M. Luhrman Listens 'When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God' : Science and the Supernaturaly
04-18-12: Commentary : Gregg Jones Stirs Through 'Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dreams' : A Dream Of Today From Yesterday
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Gregg Jones : "The Philippinos would welcome us with open arms and greet us as liberators."
04-17-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Caleb Carr 'The Alienist' : Subterranean History
04-16-12: Commentary : Richard Zacks Visits 'Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York' :The Wild, Wild East
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Richard Zacks : "Roosevelt and Riis were out looking, and if they did find a cop, he was talking to a streetwalker."
