Sigma The Newsletter of PARSEC - www.parsec-sff.org March, 2015 - No. 348 ing stable member of the community. I've been told President’s Capsule numerous times in the midst of some supposed The quality of being amusing solemn conversation, "Joe, this is no joking matter!" or comic... To me, joking matters are serious. Even though the or one of the four fluids of the hint of levity makes my status take quite a tumble to- body: blood, phlegm, yellow ward frivolous. bile or black bile. I look for humor where I can find it. In surprising Funny thing. I've been thinking and hidden places. In a turn of phrase. In an obscure by Joe Coluccio about humor lately. reference. I can often hear the writer smiling over And speculative fiction, of course. some small innocent paragraph of seeming lightness Some of you know I was a member of a comedy and fluff that may often sum up the meaning of the group that performed both on AM and FM radio and whole work. Certainly you have smiled at the con- at various venues around Pittsburgh. The group was cerns of the Puppeteers or the antics of Louis Wu, or called The Lackzoom Acidophilus Hour. Yes, there those of you with more daring, the instability of the is a story about the name. But really it was an homage Kzinti. There is nothing more funny, paranoid and to many of the old commercially sponsored schizophrenic than any of the works of Philip K. radio/television comedy and variety hours. Point is, Dick. Heinlein had a fine sense of humor among his for some years I wrote, produced and performed com- increasing libertarian diatribes. More recently, John edy material. Even got a laugh or two. Scalzi pondered the problems of wearing a Red Shirt Someone, in a conversation the other night, pointed as a member of a Starfleet command. And, of course, out that American SF magazine editors think SF sto- the number 42. ries that contain humor sell better on the other side of I propose a serious resurgence of humor in Amer- the pond. If you look at the roll call of topical, humor- ican SF. All you Kuttners and Goularts and Browns ous pieces of SF, you will see the needle of the humor and Sheckleys rise up and storm the SF mainstream. compass does point toward Britain and Disc World Make those dry hard science and literary editors stand or the Hitchhikers Guide. Yet nothing gives me more up and take note. Sure, I am advocating revolution. joy than to discover a new Gallagher story by Henry But you all know what a great gout of fun Madame Kuttner, or some short surprise wonder by Fredric Thérèse DuFarge, knitting by the light of the guillo- Brown or a tale of galactic lottery by Robert Sheck- tine, can be. ley. Critics hold these authors and other comic voices Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion, after a live rehearsal in high esteem. So what's the story? had the audience rolling on the floor with laughter, The prizes given to "notable" literature, or the Continued on Page 8 awards given to film or the praise heaped on a cre- ation of a painting or sculpture, end up with the same PARSEC is Pittsburgh’s premiere organization of science fiction, fantasy and horror. We sponsor an results. No matter how brilliant. No matter how pen- annual conference, workshops for young writers, etrating. No matter how wonderful. Works of humor lectures, and other events that promote a love of and satire are trumped by "serious" works of art. the written word and a passion for speculative fic- Drama seems to sympathetically pluck our strings tion. Our members include writers, teachers and even when bathed in cloying pathos. When you are a fans. PARSEC is a 501c3 non-profit corporation. serious person, people look upon you as an upstand- independent horror movie makers who I think first Monthly Meeting Minutes crossed President Joe’s radar. Presently they’re by William Blake Hall, Secretary showing around Razor Days, which starts out as February 14, 2015 “women seek revenge” but goes a little beyond to Top in the pre-meeting chatter was Kevin Geisel- deal with the trauma that can linger after a horrific man finding eminently decent-sounding employment. event. This sort of plot fits well with their fascination Geis also confessed to toying with a “Six Degrees of with moral gray areas. Watt and Best naturally grav- Kevin Bacon” theme for the Confluence video suite, itated to horror and they’ve been there ever since, al- which could conceivably leap from Tremors to Remo though they consider Days more a “noir mystery.” Williams and Cocoon and beyond. Our other Kevin, Their market is the Internet, video on demand, and Mr. Hayes, confirmed our picnic in Dormont on Au- the occasional convention like Horror Realm. gust 29. A YA workshop is coming together for Au- They’re also friends of a local venture called The gust 1, our Mary Soon Lee continues to get published Casting Pitt. Watt sees a bit of an inspiration in Ray and nominated, Kira continues to sell Parsec T-shirts Dennis Steckler, and I somehow restrained myself and filk CDs, Eric Davin gave away books, “The from blurting out “Cash Flagg,” an alias of Steck- Fall” by Christie Meierz comes out March 2, and ler’s. Flagg, er, Steckler got into film by first mas- DUES ARE DUE. tering the technical skills, and turned out some Ever the historian, Eric tracked down the phrase movies of the arguably “so bad they’re good” variety. “May you live in interesting times.” It is generally (I believe he may have been involved with Eegah!) attributed to Bobby Kennedy as a Chinese curse, but Watt went on to shamelessly drop the names of peo- there was some embellishment there, remindinge m ple he has been in contact with, although unfortu- of the “proverb” in the opening credits of the original nately for him they’re the kind of names only I might King Kong. Eric managed to find the phrase in a recognize: Ralph Bakshi, Alex Cox, Peter Green- 1950 issue of Astounding, specifically in the story away, Bill Richert (no, not Rickert). He also recom- “U-Turn” by one “Duncan H. Monroe.” “Monroe” mended the fun of trying to converse with people was in fact British writer Eric Frank Russell, perhaps around the world via Google Translate. best known for his Fortean work. So, now you know! Watt was selling a guide to “underseen” The raffle raised $24 and Kira walked off with movies called “Movie Outlaw” for $10, and I was a time travel anthology with stories by Asimov, Brad- impressed to see Greg Armstrong snatch a copy up bury, Serling and others. even faster than I did. In fact, I went ahead and re- Our speakers, plural, were the husband-wife viewed it before writing up these minutes. Now that’s a recommendation. team of Mike Watt and Amy Lynn Best, the driving force behind Happy Cloud Pictures. They’re small 2 Monthly Meetings ories and time travel are presented in a no-tech way in my writing and how that presentation speaks to March something central to the human condition . and the Featured Speaker for March 14, 2015 – Time: 1:30 nature of story. PM at the Squirrel Hill Branch of the Carnegie Li- Lawrence C. Connolly’s books include the novels brary: Veins (2008) and Vipers (2010), which together form Joshua Raulerson, PhD the first two books of the Veins Cycle. Vortex, the The Punchbowl and the Fishbowl: Science Fic- third book in the series, was released in November tion and the Singularity 2014. His collections, Join PARSEC for a discussion of how SF – partic- which include Visions ularly in the post-cyberpunk stories of writers like (2009), This Way to Egress Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow – is using the trope (2010), and Voices (2011), of Technological Singularity as a fictional device, a collect his stories from commentary on technological modernity, and a means Amazing Stories, Cemetery of actively shaping the future. Dance, The Magazine of The technological Singularity thesis, formulated by Fantasy & Science Fiction, Vernor Vinge and more recently associated with the Twilight Zone, and Year’s futurist Ray Kurzweil, is a fascinating bit of postmod- Best Horror. Voices was ern historiography. It begins with an observation that nominated for the Bram most of us accept without question – the pace of tech- Stoker Award, Superior Achievement in a Fiction Col- nological change has been astonishingly rapid in re- lection. He serves twice a year as one of the residency cent decades, and indeed seems to be speeding up – writers at Seton Hill University’s graduate program and then extrapolates these apparent facts to their log- in writing popular fiction and is a full-time member ical conclusion. The result is something both momen- of the English faculty at Sewickley Academy. tous and totally unfathomable; a historical reckoning we can clearly see coming though, almost paradoxi- (Note: This program or event is neither sponsored cally, we can only guess as to what changes it might or endorsed by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. bring. Joshua Raulerson earned his PhD in English from the University of Iowa in 2010. His adapted doctoral thesis, “Singularities: Techno- Pay Your Dues culture, Transhumanism, and ...or the wrath of the Ancient Science Fiction in the 21st Century”, was published in Gods will descend upon you 2013 by Liverpool University and you will be crushed like Press.