Today was my last Iron Hills Conference Math Championship as conference director. I became math team advisor when I was teaching at Par Hills H.S. twenty-two years ago, and IHC co-director 8 years ago, and have loved every minute of both positions. It’s sad giving them up next year, but they are both time-consuming, and I REALLY need to cut back on some activities so I can eliminate some of my stress and regain a bit more of my life!

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: The Moody Blues’ boxed set TIME TRAVELER. During their peak years from 1967 through 1982 they were one of the very best progressive rock bands, tending more towards the softer end of the rock spectrum, but no less innovative because of that.

There was an article in today’s Star-Ledger about Gerard Schwartz, the conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra who is on tour with them and will do one performance in New Jersey. In the article he states that he considers himself “a Jersey boy. My father...still lives in New Jersey.” His father?! His father was Doctor Schwartz who was my mother’s doctor when she was pregnant and delivered me and served as my pediatrician, as well as all my brothers. I am the oldest brother and my mother was 25 when I was born and is currently 81, which means Dr. Schwartz is at least 85-90 years old! About ten years ago, Aunt Chris learned he had cancer, but apparently he survived it, and hopefully is in good health. He was a good doctor...well, except for the one time when I was a youngster and he broke three consecutive needles in my butt, causing me considerable pain! But nobody’s perfect, hehe...

So what elements do I look for in the “ideal” story? Here are some elements and specific stories which illustrate them. Feel free to treat these as recommendations!

> SENSE OF WONDER:
China Miéville’s PERDITO STREET STATION and THE SCAR
Jack Vance’s THE STAR KING and “The Last Castle”
Samuel R. Delany’s NOVA and “The Star Pit”

> INTRICATE PLOTTING:
Poul Anderson’s TAU ZERO and THE BYWORLDER
Robert Silverberg’s NIGHTWINGS and DOWNWARD TO THE EARTH
Dan Simmons' HYPERION and THE FALL OF HYPERION

> OUTSTANDING WRITING:
Roger Zelazny’s LORD OF LIGHT and THIS IMMORTAL

> CHARACTERIZATION:
Ursula K Le Guin’s THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS
Michael Bishop’s BRITTLE INNINGS and NO ENEMY BUT TIME

> PASSION:
Andrea Barrett’s VOYAGE OF THE NARWHAL and SHIP FEVER
Joe ‘s Haldeman’s “For White Hill”

I rarely watch television. Ironically, I watched it a lot in high school and college, a replacement for my nonexistent social life. When I graduated college though, I began spending so much time writing and reading that something had to give, and television was it. However, I still watched one show that I liked regularly. In the 70s it was M*A*S*H, in the 80s STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, and in the 90s THE SIMPSONS. But for the past few years I have not watched any show and, to be honest, I miss television a bit. I would like to find a science fiction show to watch on a semi-regular basis, and there are three likely candidates:

Probably the most popular show of the past decade among hardcore sf fans is BABYLON 5. I know it has gone off the air, but that is no problem in this age of DVDs. Of course, if I start watching that show, I would need to buy/borrow five years’ worth of shows and watch them all in sequence.

Fellow sf fan Tim Marion strongly recommended FARSCAPE, which did look interesting the few glimpses I had of it. And fellow teacher George Bottarini–an sf fan as well-told me that STARGATE is excellent, better than both BABYLON-5 and FARSCAPE, and that he has all 7 seasons of it on DVD.

So which show, if any, should I start watching? Or should I forget about television totally and instead start renting some highly-regarded movies that I’ve never seen? Or give up both ideas and continue reading my way through my Books-to-be-Read list? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

This has been an eating weekend for sure! Friday Jean and I did our customary shopping in Ledgewood (where I bought a copy of Karen Haber & Jonathan Strahan’s SCIENCE FICTION: THE BEST OF 2003), and we stopped to eat at Panera’s. That is perhaps our favorite “fast food” place with their delicious soups, salads, and sandwiches. We bought ordered the “Pick Two” specials. I had onion soup and a hot chicken frontera sandwich, while Jean had a Greek salad and the same sandwich. Apparently they had allowed our sandwiches to cool though, which neither of us noticed, so while we were eating an employee brought us fresh sandwiches, in effect doubling our order at no extra cost!

Last night we decided to have dessert at Rita’s Frozen Ice, which has opened for the season. We bought gelatis, which are absolutely heavenly layers of custard and ice.

This afternoon we are taking Andy’s car to ESU since he needs it for an appointment tomorrow morning, so while we are there the three of us are going to Ruby Tuesday’s for supper.

I think I’m gaining weight! ☺

I subscribed to quite a few prozines faithfully from the mid-1960s through the mid-1990s. I stopped, not because of a loss of interest in short f&sf, but because they were too time-consuming and did not leave me much time to read books. When I started reading prozines, only a few dozen books were published each year which did not originate in the prozines. Nowadays, book publishing dominates f&sf, so I’ve been buying dozens of books each year myself, and that only skims the surface of what are to me the most enticing books published.

Fortunately, it has gotten easier to keep track of what’s happening in the prozines, since best-of-the-year anthologies have sprouted like weeds the past half-dozen years, conveniently for me, since short fiction is still the cutting edge of f&sf in many, although not all, ways. The major annuals (in order of longevity) include:

> SFWA NEBULA SHOWCASE (39 volumes)
> Gardner Dozois’ BEST SCIENCE FICTION OF THE YEAR (22 volumes)
> Ellen Datlow’s (with Windling or Link/Gavin) BEST FANTASY AND HORROR (17 volumes)
> David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer’s YEAR’S BEST SF (8 volumes)
> David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer’s YEAR’S BEST FANTASY (4 volumes)
> Karen Haber’s (with Silverberg or Strahan) SCIENCE FICTION: THE BEST OF... (3 volumes)
> Karen Haber’s (with Silverberg or Strahan) FANTASY: THE BEST OF... (3 volumes)
> Jonathan Strahan’s BEST SHORT NOVELS (1 volume)

Some of those volume tallies might be a year off, but I’m too lazy to verify them all.

Obviously I cannot, and do not want, to read every single series for the same reason I do not read the prozines anymore. I’ll definitely read Dozois since I have a complete run, plus its length makes it the most valuable of the volumes. I’ll probably read Hartwell & Cramer’s fantasy, and Haber & Strahan’s science fiction as well, so between the three of them I should have a good overview of the state of f&sf in 2003.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: MARQUEE MOON, Television’s classic late-70s punk album, well worth its reputation.

CURRENTLY READING: April, 1951, issue of GALAXY MAGAZINE, which has some good stuff in it, especially Cyril Kornbluth’s classic “The Marching Morons”, William Tenn’s “Betelgeuse Bridge” (a typical satire, although I did not particularly like the “humans always win” ending, possibly because it reminded me too much of the “America always wins” philosophy of our current government) and Poul Anderson’s “Inside Earth.”

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! After dire forecasts the past two days about a massive storm headed for this area, it is snowing today. It started snowing about 10am, so I had an early dismissal from school–thank heavens since I hate driving on snowy roads, and it gets bad here in the highlands of Mount Olive faster than anywhere east of here! I’m spending the free afternoon catching up on such chores as:

> completing Andy’s FAFSA update online; I did Mark’s the past weekend
> writing Honors Algebra 2 tests (hehe)
> writing a scholarship recommendation for a student
> sorting through a few days’ worth of mail
> cooking dinner while Jean paints the living room; she painted the rec room yesterday in anticipation of having new carpeting installed Friday. Sounds like a fun way to spend her Spring Break!

A delayed opening tomorrow would be nice, although I would probably spend it clearing the snow off the driveway. I’m fairly anxious about doing that, since my back has been pretty bad for over a month now, and shoveling snow is perhaps the worst chore for aggravating one’s back. Jean will do the actual shoveling while I use the snow-blower, but that’s fairly stressful on the back too.

Maybe we’ll actually get to use our last snow day tomorrow. I’m not optimistic though...

Last night Jean and I went with our friends Alan and Denise to Paper Mill Playhouse to see THE CHOSEN, with Theodore Bikel doing a fine job as Reb Saunders. If I had his voice I would be an even more commanding teacher! ☺

Among the play’s strengths it raised important questions about the inflexibility of parents who truly believe they are doing the best raising their children, when in fact they are totally botching the job! Obviously this is not merely an academic issue since I have seen numerous students who are totally miserable as a result of their parents’ narrowmindedness. Because the parents were raised in a similar harsh manner, they falsely believe that since they survived their childhoods and are successful because of the values instilled in them, it is proper to raise their own children in the same manner. Thus future success is the desired "end" that justifies the "means" of a cold, comfortless childhood. Apparently it does not even occur to such parents that their children are as miserable growing up as they were themselves when they were young.

Obviously I believe discipline and values are NOT in conflict with love and happiness, and I hope Jean and I learned that lesson well enough through our own students to have put it into practice with Andy and Mark. They seem happy and well-adjusted, and the values we see in them appear strong and positive, but I guess it will take until they are full adults for us to know for sure.

College basketball might be my favorite sport because of the Big East Conference, with my alma mater Seton Hall and Jean’s alma mater Syracuse competing. But this year’s Big East championship came to an abrupt halt as Seton Hall was upset by Villanova by 1 point last night and Syracuse was upset by Boston College by 3 points this afternoon! Without our two schools in the tournament, our interest in it has abruptly ceased.

Both schools will be in the NCAA tournament as well, and hopefully they will go farther than they went in the Big East tournament!

I like to read a variety of different fiction, although admittedly most of it falls into the broad categories of “fantasy & science fiction” and “historical fiction”. So recently I interspersed a lot of Jack Vance stories and Jennifer Vanderbes’ EASTER ISLAND with a handful of genre science fiction magazines from the early 1960s. The magazine was called WORLDS OF IF and it was the science fiction magazine I discovered in my stocking on Christmas Day, 1962, thus sparking my lifelong love of f&sf. The magazine was ideal for a teenager since it primarily contained adventure-type stuff, but it also had many excellent stories by well-known writers, such as J.G. Ballard’s “The Time Tombs” and Robert A. Heinlein’s last “young adult” novel PODKAYNE OF MARS in the issues I read.

Andy, Mark and I are ordering three cd’s from Columbia House to fulfill my membership requirement, and their offer this month is “Buy 1 get 2 free.” That’s one cd for each of us, so Andy selected the new Korn cd TAKE A LOOK IN THE MIRROR, Mark chose the new Matchbox 20 MORE THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE, and I picked A Perfect Circle’s THIRTEENTH STEP, which is progressive rock from the former lead singer of TOOL, a progressive metal band. Good stuff.

CURRENTLY READING: EASTER ISLAND, by Jennifer Vanderbes, is a wonderful novel about two women who travel to Easter Island to do scientific research. One is from America in contemporary times who is studying botany, and the other is from England during World War I who is studying linguistics. The novel is rich in both the culture of the island and scientific investigation, similarly to the works of Andrea Barrett. The characterization of the women themselves is also wonderful.

CURRENTLY LISTENING: OH, MERCY, by Bob Dylan, is his 1989 album which rightfully convinced many long-time fans that he was definitely not over the hill.

SONGS FOR THE DEAF, by Queens of the Stone Age, is good old-fashioned hard rock and roll which is loud enough to do its title justice.

There has been an interesting discussion recently about a “Best Website" Hugo Award on the blogs associated with several webpages: Mark Kelly of LOCUS ONLINE, Cheryl Morgan of EMERALD CITY, and Ariel of THE ALIEN ONLINE. Not surprisingly, all three bloggers support the permanent creation of such a award (it is not surprising since they manage three of the very best sfnal websites online). But the fact that they are all affiliated with websites is basically irrelevant to their opinions, because all three of them have offered cogent arguments for the permanent creation of such an award, arguments which obviously spring from their overall views of fandom rather than from any selfish motives.

I do not manage a website, primarily because I don’t wish to engage in such a time-consuming operation which would take time away both from VISIONS OF PARADISE and from my other writing as well. But I do enjoy reading sfnal websites as much as I enjoy reading fanzines. In both cases there are superior versions worthy of Hugo consideration, and inferior versions which are barely worth reading at all. The skills necessary in maintaining an sfnal website overlap the skills needed for a print zine, but the skills are far from being totally similar. For example:

> a good webzine needs regular updating to be valuable, at least monthly if it does not want to lose its regular browsers, while a print fanzine can offer semi-annual issues and still be successful

> a good webzine supports links to other webzines

> the entire physical makeup of a webzine is entirely different than that of a fanzine; simplistically, the former requires much more intricate layout than the arrangement of graphics and written material of a printed zine

So combining webzines under the “Best Fanzine” category, which is where Cheryl’s EMERALD CITY has been nominated in recent years, is about as useless as expecting graphic novels to compete in the “Best Nonfiction” category (which is where they are often recommended for the annual LOCUS poll). There are sufficient numbers of good webzines that a “Best Website” category is both valid and worthwhile. In fact, such an award would encourage fans to seek out the nominated websites, which would be a good thing since a lot of unknowledgeable fans would actually enjoy the websites once they were aware of their existence.

So for these reasons, I support a "Best Website" Hugo Award initiative. Ariel encourages supporters to “contact the World Science Fiction Society and express your support for the idea”. I might just do that myself!

I’m not really a political person, preferring to devote my interest to popular cultural things such as fiction and music. I was raised in a family which was adamantly-Republican. While I grew up I listened to endless rants about the evil Franklin Roosevelt and the wonderful Dwight David Eisenhower. Liberals waste all our money, Conservatives protect it, Bobby Kennedy was either a fool or misguided, and Richard Nixon deserved to finish his term in office with dignity, not railroaded out of office like a common criminal!

Well, teaching has broadened my views considerably. The world is not the black and white place many people would like it to be. “Trickle-down” economics does not work. Protecting every last cent of my net worth against taxation does nothing to help the impoverished, the environment, our road system, or much of anything. I tend to vote independent of political parties, looking at the person’s overall beliefs and attitude before stepping into the voting booth.

On a state level, I thought Tom Kean was a wonderful governor, and I did not blame Jim Florio for raising taxes at all. Christie Whitman sold out our state’s future for popularity. On a national level, I thought Jimmy Carter was the most caring, humanistic president in my lifetime; too bad he was totally incompetent as a leader. Ronald Reagan had leadership enough for two presidents, but his basic attitude of “if it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for the world” did not sit well with my humanitarian side.

Bill Clinton was certainly not respectable as a human being (nor as a husband and father), but he was a darned good president. That brings us to George W. Bush. Let’s see, he is the stupidest president I’ve known, a compulsive liar who first tried to convince the country that Saddam Hussein was involved in the attack on the World Trade Towers and, when that failed, he invented that whole “axis of evil” crap and the “weapons of mass destruction”. His primary concerns are protecting the pocketbooks of his rich friends and controlling as much Middle Eastern oil as possible. And, let’s face it, he is a pawn in the hands of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, with only as much power as the Republican elite allows him to have.

John Kerry undoubtedly has weaknesses as a president candidate, but compared to Dubya he is Mother Theresa as compared to Lucretia Borgia. I believe this country will be in trouble with four more years of a Bush administration, and in serious trouble if his backers can control the White House for another eight years afterwards. So I’m voting for Kerry and encourage all my readers to do the same!