Eugene Fischer

Author: Eugene Fischer

The Basketball Fairy

In response to a caption contest for a picture of Manu Ginobili from last night’s game against the Orlando Magic (in which he scored 43 points), a user of the SpursTalk.com message board who goes by the name Interrohater penned a lovely bit of basketball mythology.

Basketball Fairy– The Basketball Fairy is an urban myth of a humanoid sprite that takes the form of a NBA player with a basketball for a head. It is said that if the Basketball Fairy appears, the colors that he wears will represent the team that will win the game.
Here is a controversial photo of a believed Basketball Fairy. Tim Duncan states: “He appeared in the middle of the Magic’s defense wearing Manu’s jersey. It was unbelievable. The Magic players stopped to look at the fairy and Manu scored 43 points with one shot.” Manu: “Claro, I’ve seen the Basketball Fairy before, he used to sell bolsas de arroz back in Bahia Blanca. I met him through Facebook.”

“Adrift” Reaches Stores

The April/May double issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, containing my story “Adrift,” is now in stores.  This is what the cover looks like, complete with a list of other people I am totally stoked to be sharing a table of contents with!

Look mom and dad!  Finally!  My name, up in ink!

I’ve Been Interviewed for Missions Unknown

Missions Unknown is a blog about science fiction, fantasy, and horror topics in San Antonio, run by John Picacio, Sanford Allen, and Paul Vaughn.  Last week Sanford interviewed me for their regular feature, “Made in S.A.”  He asked about my stories, my background with writing, Clarion, and my current interest in the Texas State Board of Education.  The interview went up today.

I think the last time I was interviewed for anything, I was a freshman in high school being asked my opinion of a proposed dress code for the school newspaper.  This is significantly more exciting than that was.

Come On Baby, Put the Rock in the House

Now that the Winter Olympics are here and people in America, briefly, care somewhat about curling again, I am suddenly reminded of the great good fortune we all had that the last Winter Olympics happened in a year when Jonathan Coulton was forcing himself to write a new song every week.  And one week he wrote about curling, giving us what may remain for all time the greatest song about that particular sport.

(The video is of the “splash a literal picture of the lyrics” variety, and tries to be a little too cute, but it’s the music that matters.)

It’s even better now that the games are in Vancouver than it was when they were in Turin.

More on Don McLeroy, and How Texas Rules Textbooks

In a lovely bit of validation for my “This man must lose his job for the good of the country!” rant of two days ago, the New York Times Magazine has just published a ten page article on Texas education guidelines, with profiles of  Don McLeroy, Gail Lowe, and Cynthia Dunbar.  (Dunbar is perhaps the craziest of them, and briefly gained national attention in 2008 for claiming that Obama was a member of Al-Qaida.  All are still on the board of education.)  The whole thing is worth reading, if only for the portrait it paints of these grotesquely colorful characters.  But the most important thing in it is probably this excerpt from page 2:

But Tom Barber, who worked as the head of social studies at the three biggest textbook publishers before running his own editorial company, says, “Texas was and still is the most important and most influential state in the country.” And James Kracht, a professor at Texas A&M’s college of education and a longtime player in the state’s textbook process, told me flatly, “Texas governs 46 or 47 states.”

This only a local election with regard to who gets to vote in it.  McLeroy needs to go.  There are 19 days left.  Here’s the opposition movement website again: District 9 Citizens for a Smart State Board of Education.

A Small Thing You Can Do That Will Improve the U.S. Educational System

I haven’t been blogging a lot this year, but I’m breaking radio silence now because this one is big.  A guy from Texas who you might never have heard of is running for re-election, and unusual as it might seem, it is strongly in your interest that he not win.

Don McLeroy is currently on the Texas State Board of Education.  In fact, until very recently he was the Chair of the TSBOE.  He is a young earth creationist, and during his time as chair worked with the creationist group The Discovery Institute to rewrite state science curricula to reflect his religious ideology, supported by several other religious conservatives on the Board.  This culminated in late 2008 with a series of open hearings about proposed changes to the curriculum that brought people from all over the state — including me — to Austin to spend hours and hours testifying against the adulteration of science education in Texas.  The turnout was so unprecedented that the state legislature was forced to take notice, and eventually led to the loss of his chairmanship.  (Look through the archives of the Texas Freedom Network for more details.)  Our republican governor replaced him as chair with another TSBOE member, Gail Lowe; another creationist, but one of lower profile.  The battle rages wearily on.

Why This Matters To You

Assuming that you are a United States citizen, the actions of the TSBOE affect you, whether you live in Texas or not.  Back in 2002 the New York Times reported that Texas comprised 10% of the US textbook market, second only to California, and that textbook publishers were already changing the content of their products to meet Texas’s conservative tastes.  “Many publishers write their books with the Texas and California markets in mind, but complain of political pressure.”  Today California is $20 billion in debt, and has slashed its education budget statewide.  Texas is now the biggest game in textbook town.  The curriculum guidelines in Texas are going to influence the educational products available throughout the country.

There are seven creationists on the 15-member TSBOE, and three other board members who are politically conservative, but not avowedly creationist.  Of the lunatic fringe, McLeroy, following his ouster as Chair, is the most politically vulnerable.  There are 21 days left until the votes are cast, and a grassroots movement to oppose his re-election in District 9 has started.  It’s currently seeking donations, and as this is a small local election (albeit one with potentially far-reaching consequences), their needs are relatively modest.  I’d encourage anyone with an interest in the state of public education in the U.S. to look over the links provided by the District 9 Citizens for a Smart State Board of Education, listen to their proposed radio ad, and consider helping them reach (or hopefully exceed) their financial goal.  You will be helping to reduce by one the number of fundamentalist ideologues on the most influential board of education in the country.

District 9 Citizens for a Smart State Board of Education

Rabbit Hole Day Repost

Rabbit Hole Day 2010 has nearly been and gone without my doing anything to recognize it.  Too many distractions this year.  But this seems a fine time to collect in one place the Twitter and Facebook messages I churned out a year ago today.

MICROBLOGGING RABBIT HOLE DAY 2009

Jan. 26, 11:42 pm: Oh hell. Less than half an hour to go until Rabbit Hole Day, and I turn into a jellyfish.

Jan. 27, 11:31 am: Tentacles got too tangled up in the bed, so I slept in the toilet tank. Woke up wet on the bathroom floor, rust stains on my arms and legs.

1:18 pm: Rust stains were actually steampunk spores. All sorts of little dials and whistles budding up now. Will see if body trimmer can work me in.

2:05 pm: Made it to body trimmer, but had to wait 20 minutes listening to a jackhammer outside before I got in his chair and he sliced off the brass.

2:08 pm: Jackhammer reminded me of the aerial shots my dad took of Siberia during the war. Fields of frozen compressors made to steal the atmosphere.

2:26 pm: I think my generation takes the air for granted. I’ve turned off neutral buoyancy for the day. Time to remember what weight feels like.

2:58 pm: Fuck! Weight feels like horrible bending pain in shins, cracking sounds in my knees, and empty cherub husks poking painfully into my feet!

3:17 pm: Non-Texans: Seasons are weird here. Cherubs emerge from ground and molt in Jan rather than Nov. Cat ate so many husks, it needed an enema.

3:33 pm: Uh oh, I’m in trouble. Just got an angry text message from the cat, who is upset I told the internet about its enema. This won’t end well.

4:07 pm: Cat is now threatening to join the neighborhood gestalt. It knows how poorly I handled things when my dog did that where I used to live.

4:11 pm: After my dog sublimed, birds in branches, and the neighbors’ fish would ask me probing questions about my personal life. Total freakout.

4:28 pm: Of course, if the cat does sublime, things won’t be as bad this time. I’ve never let it into the bedroom. ClawBot meets my needs these days.

5:18 pm: Managed to patch things up with cat on phone. Now need to head home before things get angry. Emoteorologist says an affront is blowing in.

6:50 pm: Yeah, I made it home okay, but everything still sucks. I’m SO ANGRY! I just want to go outside and bash people’s thoughts in with a stick!

7:02 pm: Oh god, I’m so ashamed of myself. I actually did go out and pop some kid’s thought balloon with a mop handle. I couldn’t stop myself.

7:06 pm: It wasn’t until that little cloud over his head had burst that I realized what I was doing. I hadn’t even read it! I just didn’t care!

7:08 pm: I don’t usually let angry weather effect me like this. I’d better apologize to his parents tomorrow. I wonder if they like cherub pie.

8:37 pm: Caught enough cherubs. They are always distracted during their mating flights. An even mix of male and female helps the pie taste better.

9:30 pm: Guess the pie in the oven is for me now. The kid’s dad just tattooed an obscenity on the skin of my house. I think that makes us even.

9:49 pm: Brought up the house’s bios to tell it to start breaking down the tattoo, and noticed it is mounting a huge immune response. No idea why.

10:02 pm: OH NO! It’s the steampunk spores! The whole bathroom is infected and overgrown with pipes and stuff! It didn’t even occur to me before!

10:16 pm: Oh my god, there is so much wrench and hacksaw work to be done to get down to the floor before I can even APPLY the genrecidal medication.

11:11 pm: And while working on the bathroom, I forget about the pie in the oven until the delightful smell of tiny burning limbs fills the house. Ugh.

11:21 pm: The spores got into ClawBot. My night is well and truly ruined. Would have been better today to have just stayed a jellyfish. Going to bed.

Hunting Strategies of Aquatic Mammals

There’s a neat video going around of a hunting strategy pursued by bottle-nosed dolphins in shallow waters.  They swim in tightening circles and use their tails to make fences of cloudy water to trap schools of fish:

Very cool.  But at the end of it good Mr. Attenborough pronounces that dolphins are the only known species to pursue this fishing technique.  Yet right there in the related videos panel is an even more dramatic video of humpback whales using air bubbles to do essentially the same thing in deep water.

I wonder how widely known the “schooling fish are afraid to swim through churned up water” behavior is among ocean mammals.

Favorite Comics Covers

There’s currently a thread on io9 about the best comic book covers of the past decade. There’s a ton of beautiful work on that list, but one cover that was immediately notable to me by its absence was the cover to LOSERS #26, by Jock. Maybe it was the timeliness — it was practically a political cartoon — but I don’t think any cover has stood out in my memory as strongly in the last decade as this one.

EDIT: Closer reading reveals that io9 specifically excluded LOSERS for not being SF enough.

losers26cover

Grandma’s Grand Tour Part 8: Rouen, Caen, St. Malo

IMG_0867

Days 32 through 34 of my grandmother’s 1936 trip to Europe, covering a portion of her travels through Normandy. (Previously: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.)

Paris to Rouen Sat. July 25 [1936]

At 9:30 this morning we said our farewells to Kay & Charlotte & the Nicholsons and started on our way to Rouen.  It’s surprising how bad we all felt leaving the party that we had really known such a short time.  We arrived in Rouen about noon & after hurry around [sic] for a porter found the train only stopped about 2 minutes; so with the help of a couple of Frenchmen we threw our baggage out of the windows of the train & went scurrying around for the man from the hotel who was to meet us.  To our dismay there was none & so we managed in our very bad French to get a cab & get to our destination which proved to be a very dismal place.  Our rooms were on the 4th floor to which we had to walk as there were no lifts.  After lunch we started out to see the town.  We visited the Cathedral where some man kindly offered to guide us thru & then charged us 90¢ a piece.  This is the town where Joan d’Arc was burned.  Rain drove us back to the hotel but after dinner we started out again to see the Palace of Justice, the famous clock & a statue of Joan d’Arc.  Our method of sightseeing was quite rare.  Marie with the travel book reading about the things, Bert with a map of the city to see that we were looking at the right things, Jo with a French-English dictionary & me looking the part of a typical tourist with my mouth wide open just gaping.  Next to the Select Theatre to see the “Gay Divorcee” with French dialogue.  The theatre was smelly & crowded & we couldn’t make out head or tail of the picture so during the intermission we left unable to stay another minute.  How we longed for a good old fashion American movie.

For an older but more comprehensive view of Rouen, Project Gutenberg has an 1840 text Rouen: Its History and Monuments by Théodore Licquet.  And of course there’s the Wikipedia page for the modern view.  The Gay Divorcee starred Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, their second on-screen pairing, and was nominated for Best Picture.

Ruen to Caen, Sunday, July 26, 1936

We started out at about 8:30 A.M. by motor coach for Caen, after quite a mix up at the station about our luggage a part of which they finally had to ship ahead to St. Malo.  Our first stop was Jumièges, the ruins of an old abbey, with just the walls of the 3 churches which composed it.  Very interesting sight which would have been much more so if we had been able to understand the French guides.  The man who was with us was supposed to translate but he did a very poor job.  Our next stop was the Abbey of St. Wandrille where we heard the Sunday morning services and then were shown around the outdoor restaurant at Caudebec-en-Caux where we dined with a woman from California who later in the day became our interpreter.   Deauville for a afternoon tea which cost us 10 francs (70¢).  We were all very disappointed in the place after all we had heard about it.  It looked just like Oak Street Beach.  At dinner time we arrived at Caen where we were to spend the night.  After dinner we had our usual walk around the town and then to bed early.

Places: Jumièges, Abbey of St. Wandrille (Fontenelle Abbey), Caudebec-en-Caux, Deauville, and Caen.  And, for comparison, Oak Street Beach, which I believe was visible from the window of my grandmother’s apartment in Chicago when I knew her. UPDATE: I was wrong, this was not the beach visible from her window.  That was a Yacht Club.  Why have I heard of Oak Street Beach?

Caen – St. Malo, July 27, Mon. [1936]

Left Caen about 8 en route for Bayeux where the famous tapestry of Matilda is.  We walked about the town saw the cathedral and then spent about an hour looking at the tapestry.  We didn’t stay until the guide finished lecturing as we couldn’t understand a word & decided the air would do us much more good.  From here we traveled for about 3 hours seeing some of the very beautiful country of Normandy, had lunch in Granville and then on to Mont St. Michel the high spot of the day.  On our way there we passed thru Le Havre & saw the Normandie docked there.  About a half hour before we reached Mont St. Michel we saw it in the distance, a very beautiful sight.  Upon arriving we were told to follow the little crooked street, lined with souvenir shops and restaurants, until we reached the church.  We kept walking and climbing & steps until we reached the top simply exhausted.  Here we were conducted thru and saw the rooms used by the monks in the early days & later during the Revolution used as prisons.  The whole church was built by the monks who carried each piece of stone from the nearby quarries up to the top of the mount.  It is a beautiful piece of gothic structure.  After 2 hours of wandering around we again started on our way passing thru many small towns until we reached our destination St. Malo.  This is an old 11th century town completely surrounded by walls from the old fort.  It is a terribly dirty place with streets so narrow by walking down the middle you can almost touch the buildings on either side.  After dinner we went out into the square where they were showing movies.  We sat at a sidewalk cafe for a while had a drink & then went up to bed just before the movie was over.  The hotel was rather miserable but clean.

Bayeux (and its tapestry), Granville, Mont St. Michel, Le Havre, St. Malo.  Le Havre was the home port of the S.S. Normandie, which at the time was the largest passenger ship in the world.  Four years after my grandmother saw it the ship was seized by the U.S. for use in WWII after the fall of France and renamed the USS Lafayette, but it never saw service as it caught fire in New York harbor while being converted into a troopship and capsized.  The Wikipedia article has some amazing photographs.  My favorite is this one, of the capsized ship still in the harbor:

USS_Lafayette_1942

Newer Posts Older Posts