Tad Williams

Cleaning things is, in my humble opinion, not only time consuming and smelly, but futile and morally questionable. Follow me down this convenient rabbit hole so that I can explain in detail. Watch out for the synecdoche, it’s been known to nip.

Serious People have written books about the end of evolution (e.g., about ten years ago, Peter Ward wrote a detailed account of mass extinctions which muttered darkly about our impending doom, a subject of infinite interest to me . . . if I had my own university, you would be allowed to major in Eschatology). One theory goes that humans have so overwhelmed the available niches that the geologic processes necessary to permit adaptation are too truncated to allow for the kind of slow experimentation necessary to give rise to useful new appendages, like the opposable tongue, or critically needed adaptations such as the ability to secrete SPF 6000 after the ozone layer disappears. I should hasten to add that this is by no means the majority opinion. However, because it suits my thesis, I embrace it like a pillow made of rainbows.

Scrubbing down your kitchen is, thus, closing off the potential for new and exciting species to arise. Okay, some of the species are going to be socially awkward to introduce to your parents, but sacrifices must be made and you know you want to date somebody who's made of penicillin.

The Darwinian struggle for supremacy occurring behind your refrigerator could one day lead to First Contact with the Sporefolk, who will share with us their history, including the Dust-Mold War, stirring tales of the heroism of the Mite Squadron, the pivotal battle of the Forgotten Cheese, and the horrific use of the Diatom Bomb (which led to the Freon Peace). Don’t you want to meet the Sporefolk? They could teach us how to communicate with dandruff and dust. And also, how to use a spork. Yes, that was a pun and I am not ashamed.

Actually, Tad has already done something similar in OTHERLAND, with his kitchen universe, and that has always been one of my favorite set pieces in the books, both very funny and surreal. I am not the first person to observe that some of the Otherland pocket universes could have sustained books of their own by a less ambitious author. The kitchen tableau might’ve engendered a whole other series (OTHERLAND: MICROWAVE OF MARROON MIST, followed by OTHERLAND: EGGBEATER OF ECRU ELAN). I also love Tom Disch’s BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER, an incisive satire that is somehow also a simple tale of heroism and friendship that stars loveable household appliances.

Speaking of DUST, by the way, I am reminded of the wonderful book on the subject by Joseph Amato. He delves into the world of the microscopic with a poetic gift for the power of the subatomic to capture our imaginations. You’ll never look at your pillow the same way again. Or your skin. Or food. You will say eww. A lot. Seriously, though, he uses the ubiquity and elusive nature of the aggregate of detritus that we collectively refer to as “dust” as a springboard for all things “invisible to see.” Like the best fiction, it is a story of the human penchant for creating transcendence from the mundane.

You should also see MICROCOSMOS, a wonderful little documentary about the insect world. There’s a snail mating scene that is very hot stuff.

But I digress.

The Earth teems with germs, virii, bacterium, and maladjusted plankton just yearning to combine in new ways, grow pseudopods, and create their own reality t.v. show (The Pelagic Zone’s Next Top Nekton, say). Have we the right to deny the inchoate aspirations of incipient intelligences merely to satisfy our weird need to have our homes smell like lemons? I say thee nay.

My point is that the world is a dirty place, just stuffed to the gills with potential (by the way, gills are yet another subject about which Aristotle was tragically and totally wrong and my hero Pliny the Elder was right. Pliny was one of the most fascinating dudes of his time and I have often thought of writing a book with him as the main character. He is famously a witness to the Vesuvius eruption that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 A.D. (I refuse to bow to the will of the “after common era” tyrants) and his nephew’s account of the eruption and heroic efforts to save the victims is our main source for what we know of that event. Also, an eruption of that type is named Plinian in his honor.)

But I digress again. I am turtles all the way down, I’m afraid.

I beseech you. Put away your sponges and green scrubby things and become a defender of possible life. Surely you, like me, long for the day when humankind will meet another race of intelligent beings who you can beat at backgammon?

Do continue to put the coffee cups in the dishwasher before I come to visit, however. Let’s not get carried away.

I long for an Area of Expertise. I want to be the go-to guy for reporters on deadline. I dream of seeing Preeminent Expert Guy on a chyron below my name on CNN. I think it would be extremely cool to be in JPL’s rolodex, say, for emergencies related to microfracture repair via telepresence. Currently, my obituary will read, “Local eccentric who never got Final Jeopardy right, dies after a short and cowardly fight with a very rare and silly disease.”

I’m all set with the humble demeanor concealing vast powers of ratiocination. I know lots of convoluted ways to express a simple point (c.f. all previous and future blog entries). I would treat my adoring acolytes with the merest tinge of imperiosity (still shooting for that OED cite…one of these words is going to make it, I would bet my anthrovitaeosity on it). I would love to be disgraced via an Ayn Rand-like controversy involving a mentoree.

But no. I am cheated of feature by dissembling nature, deformed, unfinished, etcetera. I am reduced to this sad little whinge, a gray eminence wannabe, a Man Without a Chyron.

I know a tiny bit about a few things that are useful for a writer of speculative fiction, none of which are likely to get me introduced to Sheryl Crow or paid an exhorbitant consultant fee. Instead, I have intense agape for serial commas and can advise you on which magazine editors are the kindliest rejecters of short fiction.

Oh sure, I do have one or two subject areas that I can bore you with at parties. For example, I know way more than I should about the history of Marvel comics, but I know a guy who writes for Wizard who knows the exact issue in which the Submariner first used the expression “Imperius Rex!” And he doesn’t consider himself a real expert on comics. I know a fair amount about geology, but I have an abysmal track record in identifying whatever weird rocks my friends show me. I have occasionally interpreted New Yorker cartoons for spare change.

For my novels, I had to learn something about genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, neural maps, and I spent a ridiculous amount of time reading about the Hanseatic League to develop something reasonable for the economy of a planet.

Sadly, however, my brain resembles a leaky capacitor, both functionally and literally. Most useful info that I cram into my tiny brain dribbles away almost immediately, while I continue to remember the lyrics to the theme song for very old t.v. shows like “Hardcastle and McCormick” forever and ever. I am, in short, engineered to be mildly amusing so long as I am given time to google a subject of interest.

Lately, in desperation, I have decided to become an expert on an imaginary topic. Below, I give you a list of five possibilities. Do not be surprised if one of them appears in Wikipedia very soon.

Feel free to ask me any question you like on any of these subjects.

Some people are Early Adopters. That is, they cock their lovely heads, flare their adorable nostrils, and somehow scent the coming of Coolness. These admirable souls are not merely surfing the bleeding edge, they are shredding the probability wave that precedes the edge, especially after it collapses by being observed by grubby proles like me. I am, metaphorically speaking, the sad sack who follows behind the elephant of innovation with the pooper scooper of tardiness.

Who am I kidding? This is no metaphor. I actually own such a device.

I am always one beat behind. I am Meg White, without her essential manic cuteness (speaking of which, apparently the title of the White Stripes recent album “Icky Thump” is derived from a Lancashire epithet, “ecky thump.” They thought the revision would make the term more comprehensible to American audiences. What is the British equivalent of ba-wha--!!?).

Anyway, my colossal unhipness was driven home to me recently when I went to a play in San Francisco and was seated in a row behind a man with an iPhone. After noting the ominous lack of props or sets or anything resembling preparations for an actual play – an almost certain sign that some sort of Brechtian post-nihilist stare-a-thon was imminent – I watched this fellow play with his magic device. He spun it in his nimble hands, thumbs moved so swiftly over icons and other mysterious buttons that I felt that I was watching an outtake from Koyaanisqatsi. Images appeared and lap-dissolved into video-on-demand, overseas business calls, and a medley of ringtones by bands using instruments that haven’t been invented yet. Somehow, he managed to simultaneously carry on a coherent conversation with his companion, a lovely young woman with fuchsia colored hair who peppered her speech with Leetspeak and enough swear words to have exhausted my family’s supply of mouth filling Dial soap for a year, but she wasn’t angry or upset at all. She used these words as conjunctions, punctuation, and diacritical marks. It was very impressive. I spent six years in the Navy and didn’t hear many of these locutions.

If this were a science fiction story, I would assume that this man was a time traveler in the service of alien observers from the far future. Instead, I realized that I am not even hip enough to understand how phones work now. Nor am I qualified to chat up attractive women with tattoos of ideograms borrowed from the I-Ching and a vocabulary borrowed from millworkers in Hell.

Given these facts, I have decided to invent my own trend, create a sexy fad that will go viral, thereby bringing me fame, fortune, and the scorn of YouTube commenters.

Thus, behold Evolvo!

What is Evolvo, you ask with that sweet tilt of the head that I choose not to interpret as wary concern for my mental health?

Evolvo is not merely a way of thinking and lifestyle, dear friends, it is a scientifically proven method for achieving anything your heart desires….if your heart desires exactly what you already have. Allow me to dilate…okay, that hurt. Allow me to contract.

Evolvo is a series of calibrated steps designed to guide you into understanding how the vast engine of Natural Selection has molded you into the perfectly shaped fleshoverse™ that you currently occupy. It teaches not merely acceptance of your corporeal existence but adoration of it. You are sublime! Unique! Irreplaceable! And probably Useful!

In order to fully comprehend the genius of Evolvo, you must first become one with the hardy Proetida, a trilobite of great renown. This process of melding, or as we call it in our seminar, Try-lobiting, is aided by our ginkgo based, brain-boosting, energy snuff, which is available in exorbitantly priced thimbles in the lobby.

Once you find your inner Proetida, your journey to realizing your own perfection will have begun. But I see our time is up for today and your check has not cleared.

In future sessions, we will discover:

How Evolvo teaches us that when you sing aloud, there is no objective standard to judge you. The sounds you emit are the culmination of millions of years of fine-tuning and experimentation. Sarcastic sods like Simon Cowell are atavistic fossils addicted to the pitiable narrow appreciation of pure sound which is the hallmark of Oldthink™. Pay no attention to those who have not yet grasped the intricate apotheosis of Evolvo. Restrooms are perfect venues for sharing you’re a capella rendering of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

There is no such thing as “klutziness.” Stumbling, tripping, and damaging objects is simply the externalized paradigm of the brilliance of Natural Selection. Each flail is a groping into the universe of possibility. Those pathetic beings who avoid the struggle to find new niches are doomed to extinction. Pity them.

Cooking inedible dinners is not a character flaw to be corrected, but rather a sign that you are a pioneer in exploring new ways to sustain the fleshoverse™. Yes, it is a slow and painstaking process and you will often suffer the derision of our less adventurous cousins, but in a few thousand years, when humankind is subsisting only on black toast and cold coffee, your sacrifices will be known and cherished.

For further information on the Evolvo Method, please visit my booth at Denny’s on Market Street. I haven’t worked out how to scotch tape my website to the Internet yet.

I spend an inordinate amount of my time dreaming up catch phrases and neologisms. For example, I hereby trademark, copyright and patent the word: blogedanken. Definition: Blog thoughts that include an element of pure, usually silly, speculation.  Thus: blog post = did you know that frozen squirrels have been used for criminal purposes?  Blogedanken = Why not save a step and freeze a Bushie?

Speaking of pure speculation, I am reading "The World Without Us," by Alan Weisman. The book imagines the Earth entirely relieved of all humans and what would happen to our infrastructure (lots and lots of good things, it turns out). What would last and what would become inexplicable doohickeys encased in the fossil record? According to Weisman, much of what we consider a permanent gift to the far future has more than a whiff of the hubris of  Ozymandias.

Some bridges would collapse in only a matter of decades (but not some of the New York bridges, which were built by paranoid superengineers who wanted to be sure their beloved creations would be able to withstand the daily traffic of thousands of resurrected stegosauri, among other less credible scenarios).

However, all those plastic bags clogging up the arteries of the world will remain until some microbe evolves a way to eat them, which could take hundreds of thousands of years. Ironically, stone and bronze stuff — you know, Roman aqueducts and the Statue of Liberty — would outlast pretty much everything built in Manhattan (which will be ruled entirely by ailanthus, far wilier and meaner than any triffid you've ever met).

I write science fiction, so this kind of speculation is like mainlining Jules Verne. I ache to write a scene with caribou lounging around Wall Street.

Further blogedanken:

I love all things Joss Whedon, but who makes a vampire a Champion? You can kill them with a splinter, scald them with a cup of cold water, scare the crap out of them by holding things up perpendicularly, and sunshine burns them up. About the only thing that doesn't kill them is a frozen squirrel. I don't know if whacking them with a freeze-dried Republican would work, but still.

If I had unlimited time and lots of spare cash, I would absolutely film a version of Hitchcock's "The Birds," starring feral butterflies. A Nabokov lookalike would be savaged in the first scene.

Richard Dawkins has defined a meme as "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation."  There are lots of other definitions. I don't understand any of them, which makes me cranky. So, naturally, I mock. Are the many definitions of meme also memes? Does Gödel's Theorem preclude meta-memes? Is there such a thing as a mini-meme? Would a Tuvaluvan throat singer use the scale do-do, re-re, meme? I can do this forever, you know.

I'm a huge Heroes fan, but c'mon. If you suddenly found out that you could read minds, you'd be on the next flight to Vegas. Also, how the heck do you navigate when you fly and if you're moving that fast, you're just asking for a close encounter with a jet turbine. Also, how come Hiro could use his powers without a sword in the first few episodes and what's the deal with that sword anyway? Don't get me started on Syler the brain eater. I have so many issues with this show, which I still resent for killing off the Google waitress, who I totally loved.

Why do some writers become obsessed with linking up their books and stories into one Master Narrative? Heinlein did it. Asimov did it. If I was smart enough to comprehend the deep connections in Gene Wolfe's work, I would probably find that he has done it, too. For all I know, Tad is plotting Simon's appearance in Otherland even as we speak. It's so weird. I blame memes.

It seems to me that there are two possibilities:

1) Become an expert on something no one's ever heard of (even Tad) and try to write entertainingly about it (e.g., I am sure I could find a wealth of hilarious and thought provoking incident by examining the love lives of trilobites). This would, however, require that I study paleobiology, learn something about organic chemistry, add trilobite to my wordchecker, and invite the scorn of actual trilobite-o-philes who would not be amused by my fumbling attempts at arthropod humor. I expect I would soon find myself taken to task for failing to give the little guys their due in the ongoing effort to explain the Cambrian Explosion and there would be much sneering over my devotion to the hardy Proetida. Also, I am incredibly lazy and prefer to get my knowledge via cultural osmosis. I have an exceedingly permeable membrane (i.e., television) for this purpose.

2) Focus on topics that have many different facets and hope that I can eke out an original slant on a subject. The problem with this solution is that my take on many things is, well, let us say endearingly idiosyncratic (which sounds so much classier than kooky). For example, I think they waste far too much time doing abstruse experiments on the International Space Station. I'm sure the Hand Posture Analyzer is exceedingly important for hands that slouch during algebra class, but do you care? Wouldn't you much rather see the astronauts role playing a murder mystery? Or, what about Big Brother 9; when you get voted out of this house, you won't be doing any postgame interviews with Ms. Chen. I also have dark thoughts about tribbles, a morbid fascination with the potentially Earth-squishing asteroid called Apophis, and a deep affection for the Tudor era job known as the Groom of the Stool.

While I work out this dilemma, here are five things I know that will enrich your life, enlarge your hippocampus, and improve your hand's posture:

1) The International Commission on Stratigraphy (http://www.stratigraphy.org/) has altered the official geologic time scale. Tertiary has been demoted for being inexcusably shifty and replaced with the infinitely more reliable Paleogene and Neogene. I know you are, as I, mourning for the K-T Boundary (i.e., the time period when the dinosaurs got wiped out). K-P simply does not have the same pizzazz.

Please do not write me plaintive emails asking why K stands for Cretaceous. That information has not oozed through my membrane as yet.

2) Mussel Rock, near Daly City, California is the true epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, not Olema, which continues to pretend that it was the epicenter, fleecing gullible tourists and making the San Andreas Fault cry.

3) Chert and Flint are very closely related minerals (and both of them envy chalcedony). I'll bet you thought Tad came up with those names randomly for SHADOWMARCH. Hah. Every single word in every book he writes is of maximum importance. Reread everything he has written. Take notes. Be especially suspicious of backformations.

4) There are four rival ways of pronouncing Latin (http://www.ai.uga.edu/mc/latinpro.pdf). Start studying immediately. You never know when you are going to stumble into a Tipler Cylinder and end up south of the Rubicon trying to explain your presence to some short tempered Praetorians. Beware the metaplasms.

5) Under Yellowstone Park lies the immense caldera of a supervolcano. It has erupted three times: 2.1 million years ago, 1.3 million years ago, and most recently 640,000 years ago, spreading a layer of volcanic ash over most of the North American continent. It has the potential to cause mass extinctions and alter the climate for decades, if not centuries. Some scientists think it's due for another pop. G'night kids, sleep tight!

In future bloggings, I suspect I will declaim upon infernal memes, viral video, Grimm's Law, why Solaris is underrated and Children of Men overpraised, what's new and nifty in the bookstores, and why terrane, firn, and grus are not misspellings. Unless Tad beats me to it. Then, I suppose I will have to get serious about deducing how trilobites got nooky. I suspect the benthic bad boys got most of the action.