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World on Fire.

July 1, 2021 by Exangel

This morning we all woke to a world wide environmental crisis. Other crises, sure, yeah, but they stem from the first one. When danger threatens from an uncontrollable source—weather, fire, earthquake, flood—anxiety rises exponentially. There is a biological response. For humans as animals, the biological response is fear. For humans as human, the response is art.

In a culture, there are two periods where a people turn to creating art of all kinds at an astonishing pace: when things flower and when things fall apart. People are usually too busy rebuilding in the period between the second and the first to have leisure for the arts; that’s usually when the specialists take over.

We know what period we’re in right now. And we know what that means we need to do. Search for new ways of being. The first place to start with is actively being kind to everyone around you. That means everyone. Especially the people howling with useless and stupid shouts you vehemently disagree with. That’s their pain bodies howling. We need to just be there, and hope that others are just there when our own pain bodies scream. There is no way forward from the howling until the howling stops. That’s when the healing art begins.

Have a look at all the poetry in this season’s issue if you want to see some art that responds to what’s going on around us. Frederick Pollack’s Harbor. Marissa’s Summer Solstice. Sean Murphy’s The old man on the beach with the metal detector.

Really, truly, read Range Bound by Charlotte McGuinn Freeman. I love Charlotte’s work as she wrestles with the problem of getting a culture back into scale. Trust me, you’ll love her too.

For visuals, the wonderful librarians at the Newport Oregon Public Library host a three part Zoom presentation/confab I’m leading on visionary fiction. The first one is up on YouTube, if you want to get a look. So many EAP members joined in; it was a terrific discussion about where visions are to be found, even in places we are told are the least likely: legends, fairy tales, children’s stories.

Join in the next discussion, 7/20, the third Tuesday of July at 6 pm PST, if you want to add to the conversation on “Looking Back to Look Forward.” We’ll talk Arthurian legends, Charles Williams, what book illustration gives to vision, and of course my own The History of Arcadia series.

Looking forward to it.

Stay safe. And welcome back.

Filed Under: Todblog

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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