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04 August 2001
The Roaring Silence

Perhaps I should take Dr. Doyle's warning at face value—"Stop me before I theorize again!" Perhaps, by the time you wade through this thread (which will, no doubt, continue sporadically for several months) you'll wish I had…

One of the real frustrations that I have with so much fiction—including, but far from limited to, speculation fiction—is its almost relentless disdain for the arts, particularly arts that are not highbrow. As I've remarked before, it seems incredible to me that starship mechanics don't have 3D holographic posters of 26th-century Betty Grable (or Benny Grable, for that matter) in their lockers, barracks, and breakrooms; that there are so few sport heroes; that there's almost no mention of music unless it's necessary for some plot point, and when it is mentioned, the roaring silence of the remainder of the work is deafening;1 that nobody actually watches or discusses television except in support of the plot (no discussions of Seinfeld around the office water cooler, which may not be entirely a bad thing); I won't go on. That the flawed parody Dark Star actually acknowledges such materials to a far greater extent than narrative fiction should give one food for thought.

On the other hand, some kinds of decorative arts get cloying attention: the cut of a sex object's gown (or, as the case may be, form-fitting tunic); the expensive upholstery and furniture of real wood; the fabulous jewelry; and so on. There's a very simple, and very disturbing, distinction here. The arts that get excessive attention are those that can be, and usually are, used to display power relationships or pretentions to power; the arts that are ignored are those that reflect characters' internal sense of self. Most of the time, those power relationships should be readily apparent from the plot. Too often, though, readers must guess at the real character and motivation of secondary characters.

Why?

Perhaps looking at the evolution of vocal and popular music in the West would help.2 Much of the difficulty results, as usual, from the efforts of dilletantes to push their own agendas without any real understanding of context. The most illuminating one is the relatively recent explosion of Celtic and pseudo-Celtic songs and reels. That's fine, as far as it goes; there are some fine musicians and songwriters who have embraced that subcategory, and some fine work being done. But the entire resurgence of so-called "Irish traditional music" would have been impossible without Fairport Convention (and the later work of Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny), Steeleye Span, and a few other artists of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In turn, the acceptance of Bob Dylan's electric phase made their success possible. This is where things break down, because again the minstrels have overcome the bards. In my judgment, this is not a good thing.

On that pathetic cliffhanger, until the next time I pick up this thread…

1. There are a few exceptions, but their very rareness is worth comment itself. Many of these exceptions, however really aren't, because they concern characters intimately connected with actually creating music (e.g., Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet). What I'm concerned about here is integrated music, not that in the foreground.

2. Of course I think it would! As an additional aside, though, it's worthwhile thinking through the relationship between the rhetorical question and the infodump (particularly in its Professor Superscience lecture mode, sometimes referred to as "as you know Bob").

06 August 2001
Frying Pan Exodus

Leaving aside party-poopers like Random House, there has been a recent mad rush toward e-books as an alternative to obstinate, obsequious, oblivious commercial publishers. Far be it from me to defend the idiots currently in charge in the New York world. Ten million dollars for Bill Clinton's memoirs, which have yet to be written, but it took two years to find a publisher for The Sparrow, which was frightened it would lose money with an advance far less than 1% of the Clinton future fiasco?

Some advice, then, about bypassing the commercial publishing system:

If [an e-publisher] offers you four digits for your previously published novel, and is willing to pay 30% or more royalties, jump at it.

If they offer appreciably less, or under 25% royalties, laugh in their faces and wait for a better offer.

And that unsold novel? Until the internet can afford to pay a competitive price for it—and that's still years off—work at making it good enough to sell to a New York mass market publisher, rather that dumping it to run side-by-side with a million other unpublishable novels.

—Mike Resnick, "Ask Bwana," Speculations 42 (Aug. 2001): 3, 4
© 2001, Mike Resnick. Used by permission.

I would quibble with a couple of minor details (such as 35% instead of 30%), but the key is that last paragraph. At this time—and for the near- to mid-future, for that matter—financially successful e-book original novels will be just as common as financially successful vanity-press novels. Which is to say that each and every one will be a major news event, and will be trumpeted for decades as proof that e-publishing is the way to go. Which is also to say that, in the cold light of critical analysis, said novel will almost certainly suck, then drag teeth.

08 August 2001
Speaking of Dragging Teeth…

It's time to hurt some feelings, I'm afraid. I must confess that I've had fewer reviews up of late than I'd like. I've been heavily involved in family stuff and litigation, so I've had less time than I wanted to for reading this summer. But the major reason that I haven't been reviewing much is simple:

This is the weakest year for fiction—speculative fiction, mainstream, whatever—that I can recall since the late 1970s. I don't as a rule mistreat books, but I've thrown a few against the wall over the last several months. I've been grievously disappointed by some books recommended by critics I'd otherwise respect. Unfortunately, there is a common thread to all of this. It's a rather disturbing one. And it's eventually going to link back to the beginnings of my rant earlier this month.

We'll start off by noting a few awful sequels that are making their respective ways around. Judith Marillier's most recent book repeats virtually all of the mistakes of her first (overrated) effort and adds a few more besides. I find the anachronisms just astounding in a book written by someone with graduate degrees in linguistics—and that's one of the less irritating aspects. Then, continuing on, we have Sara Douglass's dragon dung, the prose of which compares unfavorably with that in much slash fiction. At least there hasn't been a Robert Jordan this year. Yet. No doubt I've just jinxed myself. The science fiction and mainstream sides have been no better; I won't bore you with the details.

The last quarter of the year had better improve a lot, or I'm going to have difficulty naming five nominations for next year's Hugos, let alone the problems in the mainstream. This year is minstrels with a vengeance, I'm afraid.

Popular music in the West has come down through essentially three threads: the bard, the minstrel, and the reel. (I'm using English-language terms for clarity, here.) In reverse order, the reel is generally for pure entertainment, and relies upon both amateur musicians (in the sense that they don't earn their living from performing or writing) and physical movement. The minstrel tradition is the "any song for my supper" school. There have been many talented musicians in the minstrel tradition; there have been very few talented writers. The bardic tradition attempts to reach larger and longer-term issues—however often unsuccessfully—and in contrast to the minstrel tradition is often of not-quite-top-standard performance. Riverdance and much of the "Celtic revival" comes from the reel, as does disco (believe it or not); Art Garfunkel, Eric Clapton, Joan Baez, Sean Colvin, and Manfred Mann's Earth Band follow the minstrel's path; and Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Kate Rusby, Peter Gabriel, and Al Stewart descend from the bards.

Yes, there is a point here. But I won't get to it until next time, which may not be the same thing as the next journal entry.

12 August 2001
Honorable(?) Victimhood

Those of you who are politically correct or have weak stomachs are strongly advised to skip to the next entry. I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore.

Let's not kid ourselves, folks. Speculative fiction is a ghetto. We don't get any respect from the literati (which, given their fawning over Tom Wolfe, Bret Easton Ellis, Dave Eggers, and Gore Vidal, is not necessarily something I want anyway). We don't get any respect from non-literati serious readers, or the Ivory Tower, or just about anyone else.

So the last thing we need is another f*&)(^*!@g excuse for ghettoization. This rant is going off in two directions at once, but they both will end up in the same place (no doubt somewhere near where we started).

1. Stephen Leigh Is Too Nice   In his entry of 9 August, fellow NAWer Stephen Leigh mildly criticizes the formation of a new "for women only" tenement in the speculative fiction ghetto: Broad Universe. Stephen isn't nearly biting enough, nor does he get at the fundamental problem with the organization: glorification of victimhood.

We'll leave aside the whiny tone of the page, and the particular peccadillos and blindspots of several of the principals (and you know who you are, honey!), and just focus on the substance for a moment. It really boils down to a simple question: Does speculative fiction really need a club whose membership is based not on what is being written, but on a matter of genetics? Or, to put it another way: Do we need a f&*)&)!^@)g subghetto for broads?¹ Perhaps I should start a "club" for Jewish military veterans who are interested in speculative fiction, and allow anyone who's interested in issues related to Jewish military veterans and speculative fiction to join or be interested, as long as we only allow authentic Jewish military veterans to make decisions, or get awards from the club, or…

Victimhood isn't pretty; being a victim isn't, either. But one does not overcome that victimized past by making someone else the scapegoat.

2. Critics Build Walls, Too   This month's Locus includes a couple of reviews of "year's best" collections. In one case, a passing remark just indicates that the reviewer was having a bad day. In the other, though, the reviewer indicates ossification. Neither review indicated approval of Terri Windling's search beyond the traditional category sources for "best of the year" fantasy. Why the hell not? Or is the cover of the f&*()^&()%^@!g magazine or book, or bin in which it's thrown at the newsstand, more important than its contents? What's really disheartening is that these comments came from a reviewer for whom I have some respect, if not always agreement.

A few historical examples, mostly from music, might make things clearer. Would popular music today be as rich as it is without assimilation of the best influences from subcultures? Could we have rock without folk and true jazz, jazz without true blues?² Would painting and sculpture be as rich and varied today without assimilation of decorative and folk arts by many of the mid-twentieth-century giants? Most to the point: would literature be as rich as it is today without assimilation of the "lowbrow" expression of prose?

I'll leave the detailed refutation as an exercise for the student. But there is a detailed refutation for both of these problems. The answer to prejudice, bigotry, and closedmindedness is not more prejudice, bigotry, and closedmindedness.

1. They're the ones who said "broads," not me. Aber natürlich! Alles ist verbinden, daß nicht verboten sind! Sie sind (und sie ist) verrückt.

2. The same goes, of course, for "high" music. Chopin's mazurkas, Liszt's various dances, Prokofiev's operatic works, and Glass's film scores, to name just a few, explicitly draw upon folk and popular music.

15 August 2001
Fried Brains, Darkside Up

The weather has finally broken here; overnight temps have dropped below 35°C here, enabling one to cool down the house. That doesn't cool down the bullshit, but every lethal bit helps.

So what pathetic point was I making about bards, minstrels, and reels? Well, for starters, we can drop the reels from the discussion for a simple reason: they are not ordinarily artist-identifiable (or all too often distinguishable from each other within categories). Quickly, now: which musician is most closely associated with The Hustle? Marrowbones? The Sailor's Return? The Moher Reel? The answer is that there is no musician that is recognized as originating any of them—they are all "covers" of obscure material. The real fight for the hearts and minds of the audience for popular art is between the bards and the minstrels. But it's not a simple fight, and it's one that should not be won by either school.

Very, very few true virtuosos also write brilliant music. Rachmaninoff; Paganini; Mozart; J.S. Bach; and maybe a handful of others, out of the entire pantheon of "serious" (often erroneously called "classical") music. This is even rarer when looking at the haystack of vocal artists, almost none of whom are equally adept at composition, lyric, instrumental performance, and vocal performance. There are a few who meet three out of the four criteria—Mark Knopfler and Richard Thompson can't sing well, Randy Newman and Paul Simon don't play their chosen instruments particularly well, Joan Baez and Sandy Denny don't write good lyrics, and so on. On the other hand, there are both brilliant performers who write horribly, including (for most of his career) Eric Clapton (who is not a good vocalist, either), Jimi Hendrix, and Miles Davis, balanced by brilliant songwriters who are at best indifferent performers, such as Bob Dylan, Andrew Woolfson, Suzanne Vega, and Todd Rundgren.^†

As my brain is now thoroughly deep-fried, I'll leave distinguishing music from writing for another time. Yes, there is a distinction—a telling and liberating and disheartening one.

^†   The dearth of women represented here is not intrinsic, but because for whatever reason women either do not maintain a single "persona" throughout a music career (e.g., Janis Ian) or become submerged in the testosterone-infused subculture of the Western arts, and thus impossible to find. The men tend to be more extreme, so most of these examples are men.

18 August 2001
An Evaluation of the DMCA

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 512, has been in effect for almost three years now. And I have to say that it's largely a failure. It has not acted to control infringements, and the safe harbors are so badly worded and ill-defined that they're really not assisting ISPs in avoiding problems through the infringements of their users. To list just a few of the more salient difficulties:

• Too damned many ISPs, and particularly the larger ones, simply do not respond to DMCA complaints. One of the major players (which normally doesn't have the honesty to admit that it owns most of the smaller ISPs it has gobbled up) normally tries everything within its power to avoid compliance. Another never responds at all, and does not actually comply with the DMCA's requirements. Here's a suggestion: search for your own ISP at the Library of Congress's listing of DMCA agents and see if it's there. If it's not, complain loudly.
• The statute itself is badly written, and difficult to comprehend. Many problems could have been solved had the arrogant jerks who wrote it provided one or more sample complaint letters, preferably in fill-in-the-blanks format. Here's one sample at Writing World.
• The ISPs as a rule treat the DMCA as an "all or nothing" shield against infringement issues. In their arrogance, they treat any technical problems with notices as if they had never received any notice at all (this is not, of course, the way copyright law is supposed to work). A particular irritation is the refusal to take action when notified of infringements by anyone other than the copyright holder. Suggestion: If you really want more-intrusive regulation, just keep it up.
• Most importantly, the DMCA does not actually grapple with the issues that it targets: providing a clear, reasonable method for notifying ISPs of infringements occurring through their services; removing infringements in a reasonably efficient manner; and minimally impacting ISP service.

Of course, there is a solution. It would actually be a lot simpler than creating a patchwork system: a central database with key form-based user access that automatically sends the complaint to the correct ISP, sends a copy to the complainant, and (most importantly) allows the complainant to track the progress of the complaint. This would actually be far simpler than a DNS server—and just about everyone has got two of those these days. But it won't work if it isn't mandatory, and certain ISPs refuse to cooperate. Then, one of them has explicitly refused to follow established standards for anything (even user-invisible data formats) since its inception… I wonder whom that might be?

25 August 2001
Fixing Digital Copyright

The central database mentioned last time is an important step, but it's an implementation step only. It does not grapple with the ultimate problem with the DMCA: the different categories drawn are completely illusory, and ultimately meaningless to end-users and unsophisticated copyright holders. The DMCA tries to distinguish among "transient communications," "stored communications," and "directory services" (although it has subdivided one of them). This is putting the cart before the horse, as the way that the ISP handles each is legally distinct, and the notification method is equally distinct. In other words, the end-user/complainant has to do legal analysis of an infringement before he/she can do anything about it, even if the infringement is obvious.

That's dumb.

Instead, the DMCA should be analyzed by how it looks to the end-user, not how it looks to the service provider. There is a much simpler distinction that actually makes administration of the system much simpler for everyone: addressing of the material, since the addressing can be determined with a simple printout of the "page"/screen/whatever that contains the infringing material. This leads to three categories:

1. Directly addressed traffic The paradigmatic example here is e-mail. This category is addressed to the recipient by the infringer.

2. Indirectly addressed traffic The paradigmatic example here is Napster/Gnutella/Freenet, and in some instances Usenet. This category is material that is sent to the recipient at recipient request, but somehow requires a membership to read. Some websites, and perhaps FTP sites, may fall in this category.

3. Unaddressed traffic The paradigmatic example here is a website, which is open to viewing by everyone unless certain (bug-laden) security measures are taken.

The point here is that the person attempting to report an infringement can immediately and correctly determine which category an infringement falls in, because he or she knows how he or she got the material. (There is a possibility of confusion between indirectly addressed and unaddressed traffic, but it's only for borderline cases that could legitimately fall in either category.) This will avoid the problems with Certain Large Providers attempting to treat Usenet traffic as if it's a transient communication, when it's clearly not (it's stored for a couple weeks or more—an eternity compared to e-mail), and thereby avoid their responsibilities to make notification quick and clear.

What's more important is that these three categories both suggest the potential liability and scope of remedy and function better in determining how to cut off an infringement or infringer than the mess under the DMCA.

Tuesday night will be my last posting until after I return from WorldCon, although I will be preparing updates during the 'con. Seeya there—just play Spot the Lawyer!

28 August 2001
Cures and Diseases

There has been one, and only one, long-term solution for piracy of intellectual property throughout history: Make the property both good and cheap enough that there is no legitimate market for pirated works. None of the other proposed solutions to the problem of piracy of digital works will do as well.

•  Copy protection not only doesn't work—remember Central Point Software?—but it seriously harms the material in question. Particularly in this day of people owning multiple machines, many of which are incompatible, making it difficult to move a work from machine to machine is stoooooopid. Imagine how well CDs would be accepted if the CD for your home stereo couldn't be played in either your car stereo or a portable. If it's going to work, it must be as transparent as a student's gym locker. It probably won't be any more secure.

•  Encryption is flat-out impossible in a reasonable product. An encryption system^† powerful enough to be secure places inordinate demands on anything intended to be available in real time. It's bad enough with a book; it's virtually inconceivable for anything more complex than text. Further, widely distributed works, such as e-books or movies or music, are also subject to known-plaintext attacks. The publicly professed figure is that six to ten encrypted versions of an identical plaintext, using the same algorithm/method and different keys, is sufficient to recover the algorithm and the key-generation method. Once those are recovered, a general solution is possible in a reasonable amount of time, and there are enough hackers out there with enough computing power and time on their hands that "reasonable" is going to mean a week or so for hot-selling stuff.

•  Digital watermarking is largely a mirage, at least insofar as actually preventing piracy is concerning. First, it's only a special case of encryption, and thus subject to many of the same attacks. Second, it doesn't actually prevent copying; it only deters copying by people who notice it in the first place. How many people actually look for the copyright notice in a book before they start reading it? Or on a CD or movie?

So why doesn't the entertainment industry do anything about this? Well, over time it has been forced to do so, albeit not nearly quickly enough. In the early 1980s, videotaped movies cost from $85 on up, and were often of mediocre physical quality. That has dropped now to the point that many movies out a year or so are $10-$13, and the physical quality of the tapes is quite a bit higher. In other words, it costs less to buy it than to rent it four times from Blockbuster. Yet Hollywood depends more and more upon sales of videotapes for its revenues (whatever its screwy accounting may seem to say). Twenty years ago, the only viable markets for movies were cinema theaters and TV. That third market has spawned a lot of dreck. It has also, however, spawned a lot of not-dreck that the traditional industry wouldn't have dreamed of touching.

OK, enough of this. Keep in mind that, with a number of exceptions that I can count on both hands, it's not the scriptwriters getting rich from movies. Neither is it the directors (pure directors, that is—director-producers, director-stars, director-writers, and director-sycophants are getting rich), let alone the film editors. As important as the stars are to marketing a film, with very, very rare exceptions they have little creative effect on the film as a whole. No, the people getting rich are the producers, who seldom have much to do with creativity either.

Translation to music, theater, and literature is left as an exercise for the student.

Although I will be keeping the journal while I'm at WorldCon, I won't be posting until I get back. So don't hold your breath. Unless you're a cartilaginous fish like Jaws, you won't enjoy doing so.

^†   A short note to my former employers: This is all drawn from public/open-source material, and is merely a condensation of Singh, Kahn, and Schneier. So take that NDA and stick it where it might do some good. The third floor east men's room comes to mind.

31 August 2001
The Con Game

So, ya wanna buy a bridge? How 'bout the one between the Pennsylvania Convention Center and the Marriott (main WorldCon hotel)?I'm actually writing this in the car from notes on the way back from WorldCon. So, if the memories seem somewhat selective, it's your own damned fault for not attending yourself and building your own.

The facility for the convention is much nicer, cleaner, more organized, and better adapted than was the Hyatt for ChiCon (which should be declared out of bounds for all future convention bids). The rooms were of decent size and had decent acoustics, decent hallways, relatively comfortable chairs, and clearly marked doorways and room numbering. The overall organization, however, left a great deal to be desired. The panelist nameplates were printed on flimsy copier paper and would not stand up; they should have been either on cardstock or resized and placed in holders so the audience had a chance to see the *&()^*&(*%!@! things. Fifty minutes is too short for a panel; most panels had considerable run-on, showing the wisdom of the default 75-minute panels at ChiCon. Those panels that were longer (two hours) were not clearly so marked in the program, and so many participants set their sights on panels occurring during the second hour. The Green Room was quiet enough—probably because it was not nearly as well stocked, or nearly as centrally located, as the Green Room at ChiCon. (Proposal for WSFS: Pat Sayre McCoy should become the permanent Green Room Mom.)

I'll have more about particular panels and events as I get toward the bottom of my notes. I only had one panel scheduled for yesterday (that is, on which I was a participant): an academic-track panel on Science Fiction Ben Franklin Might Have Known. This was a pleasantly well-attended panel, particularly as it ran directly opposite the opening ceremonies. It also turned out to be more than a mere reading list, which was my greatest fear. We actually got into some reasonable dialog (both among ourselves and with the audience) concerning the distinctions among "existing", "available", and "reasonable probability of having read." All in all, I think a successful panel, as I think everyone (including each of the panelists) learned something worthwhile.

Ran into some old acquaintances and friends; made new ones. Today has been pretty much a disaster after breakfast with the Rumormillians (fifteen of us descended upon the hotel restaurant and really screwed up their seating arrangements): one existing-client session and three with potential clients. The existing client session went reasonably well; the others… well, there's privilege involved, but I hate having to say (for various reasons) "I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do for your situation."

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