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Astral Avenue 05
From Rhode Island: Mobsters 'n' Lobsters
it's
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ASTRAL AVENUE
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No. 5. Mar '87
Plain living, high thinking. -- Billy Wordsworth.
When the money gets big, the SF pros turn sane.
It's always darkest just before the shitstorm.
The only thing more humiliating than selling out is trying to sell out and
being
refused.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE.
As you can see from the three lead articles below, it's been a busy,
busy year so far in Periodical World. What with all this talk of writers
spanking the deity, editors performing the Dance of the Seven Veils, and
Rambo Reviewers slaughtering gooks, our heads fairly spin. One wonders what
Joe Author and Jane Editor can possibly do in the upcoming months to top the
wild 'n' wacky events of the fledgling year. Without a doubt, tho, we'll
find out.
As for ourselves, we've spend a wonderful month waiting hand and
foot on egregiously elitist Brown University students, in the capacity of
Bookstore Clerk during beginning-of-semester rush. Nothing can take away
one's respect for today's factory-style higher education faster than
confronting some of its products. High point of our tenure was ACTUALLY
TOUCHING COSIMA VOM BULOW'S HAND, as she paid for her books. (She was taking
one history course, and 18th century lit. We hope to sell this information
to the NY Post, so hands off!) Also deadening to the sensibilities
was handling approximately 500 books per hour, until they become merely
tiresome items like canned goods or car-parts. We even adopted the malicious
proposal once critic tossed at DHALGREN, mentioning that perhaps we could
just set up scales and sell the texts by the pound.
C'est la vie, dude.
KING SEZ HE'S POP TO GOD
"But I haven't been in loco parentis to anybody but God for a very
long time now..." Stephen King, OMNI, 2/87.
-- We'd like Steve to know that "in loco parentis" means "in charge
of," not "under the charge of." Considering he used the phrase correctly a
couple of sentences before the one quoted, we were baffled. (By the way, MR.
King reveals himself to be on the side of the angels in the censorship debate
-- but precision still counts.)
EDITOR BARES ALL
"A magazine editor, for example, described with relish how she
begins taking off her clothes the moment she steps inside her apartment and
completes the process by the time she reaches her kitchen. Neither the light
of day not open drapes deters her." THE NY TIMES, 1/8/87.
-- Anyone we know?
ANALOG: "GENOCIDE RULES OK!"
"Barry has been picking up the same message I give my biology
students -- if they could arrange today to wipe out nine-tenths, 4.5 billion,
of the Earth's human population, they would save more people than they would
kill, thanks to the foreseeable consequences of worldwide population growth.
Perhaps we need an international Jim Jones, with cyanide-laced Kool-Aid for
the billions." Tom Easton, ANALOG 3/87.
-- Maybe our irony-detector is on the fritz, but we don't see this as a
laudable attempt at black humor in the staid pages of ANALOG, but rather a
true expression of their weltanschauung. Tell us what you
think.
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Astral Avenue -- IN SOME AREAS MAY BE UNLAWFUL OR
REQUIRE A PERMIT -- CHECK WITH LOCAL AUTHORITIES
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THE LANGUAGE OF (let's spend) THE NIGHT (together)
What is the purpose of the artistic technique known as "allusion," and can
it be made to have any relevance in the post-modern era?
With a little luck, I hope to be able to answer these two questions
before we're done here.
But first, one necessary definition.
"Allusion" I take to mean any reference -- embodied in a work of art
-- pertaining to another work of art distinct from the first.
This definition seems to stigmatize allusion as a hermetic
technique. Should not every work of art be a self-defined representation of
some 'real' or 'imaginary' world? The anchors of art must be things other
than art itself, once could argue. What good does it do for one work of art
to refer to another? It smacks of incest and idle games, the pastime of
pedants or bookworms, who have no other referents than words.
In addition, the Puritan work-ethic makes allusion seem like theft.
A writer "borrows" or "steals" another's words and incorporates them into his
own text, thus getting something for nothing.
I maintain that these criticisms of allusion are baseless. Allusion
serves a worthwhile purpose in art. Sure, like any technique, it can be
overdone. But handled correctly, it is an invaluable tool.
The confusion stems from a misperception of the role of art in
society.
Just as man is part of nature, so is art a part of society and
culture. The man/nature dichotomy and the art/life dichotomy are both false.
There has never been a society without art. As Steely Dan sez of
prehistoric cave paintings, "They put it on the wall/ Before there was even
any Hollywood." (Trivia quiz: What recent SF novel opens with an allusion to
this song? Answer: PALIMPSESTS.)
To refer to a previous work of art in a new one is, then, no more
'decadent' or 'effete' than it is to refer to, say, a car or a house, two
other manmade objects.
Let us examine the positive potential of allusion. Allusion
attempts to secure for the new work a vital link to the past. Allusion
embeds a work in the vast matrix of art that already exists. Allusion adds
resonance. Allusion acts as a kind of shorthand, where one phrase can
conjure up a whole book, whose remembered meanings interact with those of the
current text.
SF is a genre where allusion in one way flourishes and in another is
hardly used at all. The sharing of common invented terms and concepts among
different authors is a kind of primitive but useful allusion, which gives SF
much of its strength. But in the sense of aligning itself with the vast
corpus of world literature, SF hardly uses allusion, and is the poorer for
it.
But what, in the standardless era, does one meaningfully allude to?
Prior to this century, writers assumed that their readers were of an
elite stratum and had common knowledge of officially sanctioned classic
texts. Allusions to the Bible, Shakespeare, and Greek and Roman authors could
be made with assurance. But Horace and Seneca do not have high recognition
factors nowadays.
This is not to totally foreclose the option of alluding to more
modern texts. Roger Zelazny can title a story "...And Call Me Conrad" and
confidently expect most people to hear an echo of Melville, if only the
Classic Comics version.
However, one must allude to that which can be recognized. What can
replace the old standards, though?
My proposal is pop music. Specifically, rock 'n' roll. I contend
that today, thirty-plus years after the birth of rock, the music forms a
coherent, recognizable, rich and multiplex canon to which fruitful allusion
can be made.
Without further theorizing, here are three examples.
(1) "His calves aching, using branches and boulders to pull himself
up the last few nearly vertical yards of the trail, he finally hauled his
weary body onto the ledge that represented the highest peak in the whole
range. The view was awesome, the corrugated earth spreading away to the
horizon. Dawn broke. "Every mountain and hill shall be made
low...."
(2) "His calves aching, using branches and boulders to pull himself
up the last few nearly vertical yards of the trail, he finally hauled his
weary body onto the ledge that represented the highest peak in the whole
range. The view was awesome, the corrugated earth spreading away to the
horizon. Dawn broke. "Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops..."
(3) "His calves aching, using branches and boulders to pull himself
up the last few nearly vertical yards of the trail, he finally hauled his
weary body onto the ledge that represented the highest peak in the whole
range. The view was awesome, the corrugated earth spreading away to the
horizon. Dawn broke. "Ain't no mountain high enough, baby, cuz I
chop them down with the side of my hand!"
See how easily the third allusion fits in the natural niche occupied
by a Biblical phrase or a couplet of Shakespeare's.
Alluding to rock lyrics imparts a modern tone, something SF sorely
lacks. Admittedly, one cannot believably have intergalactic adventurers of
the year 10,000 A.D. quoting Dylan. However, many overly pompous and
tight-ass stories would benefit by the injection of a little rock anarchism.
Alluding to rock actually precludes certain unhealthy modes of writing.
I cannot imagine anyone succeeding in writing a novel of Star Wars
techno-fascism bolstered with rock lyrics.
"General Lardpants smashed his fist on the desk and began to shout
at his aide. 'Goddamn it! do you mean to tell me that the lily-livered 120th
Congress has again failed to vote for our orbiting PX's, without which our
boys on space-station duty cannot buy their smokes! Hey, you, get offa my
cloud! You can't always get what you want, but I'm damned well gonna get
what I need! It's gonna be nineteenth nervous breakdown for someone, by
Jove!'"
Utterly impossible, except as farce.
Please note that allusion is more than simply mentioning a song by
title or artist. This technique is a copout, the Ann Beattie School of Cheap
Touchstones. One must do more than merely write:
"They walked down the street; a Stones song issued from a passing
car."
No, actual lyrics must be incorporated -- almost as found objects --
directly into the flow of the narrative. This involves more work but the
payback is higher in terms of frisson.
Try this technique. It might open up new horizons. It did for me.
Walls might just come tumblin' down, as you build a solid bond in the
reader's heart.
PEOPLE YOU NEVER SEE TOGETHER BECAUSE THEY'RE ONE AND THE SAME
Ray Bradbury .................... Andre Previn
N'EST-CE PAS UNE LETTRE
Dear Publisher of ASTRAL AVENUE:
I'm so glad to see that this issue doesn't have any letters column.
I think it's a shame the way your readers treat you. Half of them don't even
bother to respond, while the other half send in the most bizarre and
outrageous theories, crotchets, whimsicalities, vituperations and
fulminations. Can't they see that ASTRAL AVENUE is intended to be something
akin to Mr. William Buckley's wonderful magazine, a sober and rational forum
for logical discourse and gentlemanly debate? I offer a hearty and sincere
"Huzzah" in response to your courage in excluding correspondence from your
smudgy Xeroxed pages.
(signed) A. Loyal Sycophant
-- Dear Mr. S.: Next issue might possibly be all
letters.
ASTRAL AVENUE No. 5. Paul Di Filippo 2 Poplar Street Providence RI 02906
