FUSSY KNICKERS as a self imagined outlaw rock-n-roll scribbler, blue-stocking hipster, iconoclast of the standard established order.
Who knew that my violation of standard spelling would expose so much ironic juxtaposition of alleged opposites within one elderly tweenager.
That's one of the things about the white, affluent class "rebellion" of the 1960s rocker set, they really weren't anything like a rebellion against the established order, they were just being brats who didn't like anything expected of them or the requirement that they grow up. They were mostly a bunch of snobs, too.
There were real rebels, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Catholic and Protestant left, anyone who was working for egalitarian economic justice. Rock and roll? The most commercial music ever made? Huh!
Update: Fussy Knickers invokes "Sturgeon's Law" one of those dumb "laws" that are adopted and become common non-knowledge and are imagined to really mean something. In that case it was the otherwise hardly known sci-fi scribbler who was whining that sci-fi didn't get no respect. His claim that 90% of everything is "crap" was created in defense of the 10% of sci-fi that was supposed to be worthwhile. I think my estimate for the pop music that isn't crap is probably a better estimate for sci-fi, too. You can judge if Theodore Sturgeon made the worthwhile stuff by reading what is generally given as his major opus, Baby Is Three. I'll bet that considerably fewer than than 1% of those who cite his "law" have any idea who he was or ever read anything he wrote.
There are writers who write four or a half dozen masterpieces, almost none who write more than that, most of the "major writers" of any generation have reputations that don't survive them by much. Some produce one great work. I've tried to read the complete published work of a number of authors, I have never gotten far with someone who specialized in sci-fi or detective fiction. The second rate quickly comes up and then the even worse.
I think one of the problems with "science fiction" is the same for sword and sorcery crap, the resort to make believe allows second-raters to take too many easy ways out. Something like that is true for the sword and sandal and bodice ripper categories in which a vague sense of imagined pasts suffices, letting the authors to impose ridiculous anachronistic mind-sets and situations on a past where those never existed. The results are pretty uniformly shit.
Now Fussy can have another little snit and I'll wait another week to answer him.
“Microcosmic God” is still a favorite. Maybe that’s because I read it when I was about 13. “The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff” has its charms, too. Never cared much for “Baby Is Three.” Then again, most of the stuff I read as a kid hasn’t aged well.
ReplyDeleteNever thought much of “Sturgeon’s Law.”
It doesn't work with individuals, it certainly doesn't work with Emily Dickinson, J. S. Bach, Beethoven, etc. It might work better with popular lit and certainly is an overestimate of quality in pop music, movies, TV, websites, radio drama (I've become very wary of "golden age" radio drama). Even the few sci-fi writers I like mostly published a lot of junk. But I don't read those if I'm looking for great writing. When I was 13 I didn't read nearly as much as I should have - piano practice has that effect on you - but managed to read a fair share of junk. When my sister-in-law was upset that her daughter was reading trash I heard Katherine Patterson (Bridge to Terabithia) asked about that by an anxious parent, she said, I read lots of schlock when I was a kid, It's OK if they're reading better stuff too. You're bound to be exposed to garbage the trick is not to sink into it like Fussy has. You'd think he'd realize him calling me on my spelling doesn't bother me. It does give me the chance to call him on his, though he's not smart enough to have a sense of integrity.
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