It’s All Real

~ Jackson ~ 1 Comment

Jerry Brito is off to Walt Disney World:

That said I have to admit that Disney World would not be my first choice of vacation destination. The reason, I tell myself, is that I don’t care for artificial experiences. At Disney World, “cast members” are never allowed to frown, for example. The smell of fresh-baked cookies is pumped into the air around “Main Street.” In fact, the very idea of a long lost American main street is fake.

But then I think, isn’t immersing ourselves in fantasy exactly what we do when we go to the theatre or read a book? Disney World is just intensely more immersive, that’s all. Why not just enjoy the ride?

Exactly. That Disney World is “artificial” is a common criticism but there’s no such thing as an artificial experience. That assumes some experiences are more valid than others. Everything one experiences is real. No one would argue that going to Paris is artificial. Yet is it less “real” than going to a war-zone like Afghanistan? The only way Disney could be described as “artificial” is if you somehow truly believed Paris is just like the France pavilion in EPCOT and equated the two. But of course nobody does that.

Experiences certainly have different weights; the death of a parent has greater reverberations than buying a Slurpee at 7-11 — but again, everything is actually happening. People who distinguish between “real” and “artificial” experiences disassociate themselves from their own lives. It’s what Sartre would call being-for-others. They imagine themselves at Disney from an exterior, third-person point of view and feel as if they have to justify their actions to that faceless observer. It’s anti-individualist.

When people say an experience is “fake” or “artificial,” what they mean to say is that it’s not to their liking. Another friend recently returned from Costa Rica. He reports “the whole place was just a little too commercialized and globalized for my tastes.” Translation: the natives wore shoes. A place is what it is. If he wants something more ethnic and impoverished (which is what the friend really means), there are other places he can go. I don’t travel to deserts because I don’t like deserts. I’d rather go to the beach.

In other words, I think perhaps Jerry didn’t want to go to Disney because, as a 30-something dude without kids, riding the Dumbo carousel doesn’t get his heart pumping. Which, as much as I love WDW, is a sentiment I can understand.

Happy Birthday, Nathan Hale

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Whilst driving in Long Island to visit the in-laws, the subject of Connecticut state hero Nathan Hale somehow arose. Mrs. Kuhl informed the boys and me that Hale came ashore and was seized by the British in her hometown, in a neighborhood since dubbed Halesite. I was astonished; I knew the story, but didn’t realize he was captured in the Loyalist stronghold of Huntington. Upon asking if there is a plaque commemorating the event, I learned that not only is that the case, said memorial lies but a hundred yards from my father-in-law’s boatyard.

The tires squealed and a detour was made. We disembarked and examined the marker — whereupon we realized coincidentally today is the 255th anniversary of Hale’s birth.

So happy birthday, Nathan Hale! Though your career in espionage was short, we remember you many years after your murder.

And hey, New York — how’s that King George thing working out?

Once More Into the Thickets

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James Maliszewski of Grognardia ran into troubles of his own when he tried to produce an RPG based on the settings of pulp fictioneer Clark Ashton Smith. The obstacle, however, wasn’t Smith’s estate — in fact, William Dorman, Smith’s stepson and director of CASiana Literary Enterprises, signed off on the project. The problems began when Maliszewski tried to include excerpts from Smith’s stories in the game rulebook:

I wrote to Mr Dorman to make certain this was acceptable and received word from him that CASiana has an “understanding” with the publisher Arkham House. This understanding is such that, while CASiana may be Smith’s literary executor, it makes no claim to holding the copyright to Smith’s actual literary texts. Instead, Arkham House makes that claim and, if I wanted to include any text from Smith’s stories, I’d need to contact Arkham House.

Naturally, I did. April Derleth, daughter of the company’s founder, directed me to someone else, who acted as Arkham House’s “literary agent” or some similar title. I can’t recall the man’s name, but I did get in touch with him. He and I exchange some letters and emails before eventually coming down to brass tacks about the cost of securing the rights to Smith’s texts for an RPG. Needless to say, the cost involved was higher than I could justify given the likely return and so, unhappily, I reported this back to the interested publisher. There was brief talk of negotiating for a better deal, but, in the end, all concerned knew it’d hardly be worth it, as this would be a niche product.

Apparently Dorman also told Maliszewski that both CASiana and Arkham House use the same agent (the one I quote throughout this post) because the two entities have a “shared interest in copyright.” Since Smith himself took part in assembling at least three of Arkham House’s collections — Out of Time and Space, Lost Worlds, and A Rendezvous in Averoigne — Arkham House has maintained the copyright of these slightly different texts, whereas the original versions that appeared in Weird Tales are most certainly in the public domain. Recall that the agent stated:

Also note that some of the earliest of CAS’ published works may be considered in public domain, and Wildside (Prime is a part of Wildside) do unfortunately take advantage of this.

Which is a clear admission that neither party has ownership of the copyright to these early versions.

It’s interesting that on the copyright page to Necronomicon Press’s 1995 collection Tales of Zothique, Arkham House is never mentioned. Instead, editor Will Murray used Smith’s original manuscripts archived at Brown University. When, in a few cases, the originals were absent, the Weird Tales versions were used. There is also this:

Of invaluable help also was William Dorman, representative of the Estate of Clark Ashton Smith, without whose enthusiasm and support this project would have never seen the light. … All items reprinted by permission of CASiana, the Estate of Clark Ashton Smith.

So my advice to anyone seeking to do what James and I failed to accomplish: communicate with Dorman solely; bypass Arkham House and the joint agent completely; and, if reprinting Smith’s texts, use the Weird Tales versions.

Plum Opportunity

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Plebeian crowds may yet swarm Plum Island — “America’s first line of defense against foreign animal diseases,” and, if you’re a conspiracy theorist, source of Lyme disease*:

The general public could someday get access to the 840-acre pork chop-shaped oasis now that the federal government is moving its animal disease research functions to a new lab in Manhattan, Kan. With a “For Sale” sign about to go up at Plum Island, the General Services Administration is seeking community input on what should be done with the property. A hearing was held Wednesday in Connecticut and another is scheduled for Thursday on Long Island.

Full story here. I realize the island has long been deemed a security threat due to its proximity to New York City and its airports, but I have to question if moving a laboratory researching animal diseases to the heart of the Midwest is sound.

Regardless, what’s shocking to me is the feds actually asked for input from the Constitution State. Opening Plum Island is a rare chance to create another Block Island, Shelter Island, or Fishers Island, and most tourists would enter via the same Cross Sound Ferry running out of New London to Orient Point. But I doubt Plum will be sold for private development; a more likely scenario is that it will be turned over to the Parks Service. At least then perhaps overnight camping would be available, something none of the aforementioned islands allow.

A New York congressman lowballs Plum Island at $50 to $80 million. Still, my guess is it will be at least a decade before the island is closed, cleaned, and pronounced suitable for civilians.

(*I’m not generally, though even I think it’s overly coincidental that Lyme disease, a vector-borne pathogen, appeared less than 20 miles north-northwest of a facility researching just those things.)

From the Halls of Massapequa to the Shores of Port Jeff

~ Jackson ~ 1 Comment

Michael Trinklein, author of the book currently topping my Amazon queue, says the scheme for Long Island to break from New York has legs:

Seceding from the nation is illegal and, practically speaking, impossible. But seceding from a state to form a new state is allowed by the U.S. Constitution — and the specifications are straightforward. Article IV Section 3 says a proposal first needs to get the approval of the existing state legislature. Dozens of plans have been debated in statehouses over the years, and in a handful of cases, legislatures have passed measures to split their states. In 1819, for example, the Massachusetts legislature voted to release its northern district — unconnected to the rest of the state — to become the new state of Maine.

Trinklein goes on to argue that potentially liberal new states — likely to send more Democrats to Washington — need to pair themselves with conservative secession attempts elsewhere to encourage bipartisan Congressional approval. That’s reminiscent of state-making efforts early in our country’s history, when the southern states agitated for the creation of Kentucky and Tennessee to balance the addition of abolitionist Vermont.

Trinklein’s essay in the WSJ here. Me on Lawng Island secession here.

Lost States has a bonus backstory further endearing it to my heart: the original edition was self-published. Yet more disproof of the corporate lie that self-publishing is harmful to a writer’s career.