Onion & Artichoke

Purveyors of Fine Literary Reviews, Discussions of Modern Life, and Only Infrequent Eviscerations With Occasional Contributions from Messrs. Aubergine, Leek, & Zucchini

[onionandartichoke]

IN VAIN, BY GEORG FRIEDRICH HAAS

Dear ONION,

Your friend Artichoke is going on hiatus. I'm sorry I didn't write this letter sooner. I meant to write it almost immediately after November 9, but I never actually had the time until just now.

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

THE ENDING TO MRS. CALIBAN

This will only really make full sense if you have read Rachel Ingalls' Mrs. Caliban. This contains no summary of the book. This is largely a discussion of its ending.

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

A BASIC DICHOTOMY

Dear ONION,

Your most recent letter got me thinking about the way our mainstream/internet culture has been using the term Basic over the past year or two – the 2015/2016 era – and why being called Basic seems to sting so much. Meaning, I just remember coming across so many posts online (thanks, Tumblr) by people that had almost this sense of outraged betrayal at being called Basic – in a way that I never really encountered with people being called Prep or Emo or Hipster or what-have-you.

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

BASICALLY BITCHY ONION

My most dear Zanuda, ARTICHOKE,

The idea that basic isn't exactly the kindest thing to call another person is not new-- Buzzfeed had an article on why it shouldn't be used way back in, like, 2013, and I'm not going to find it and link it, because who gives a fuck what Buzzfeed has to say anymore? (You heard me)

Like Zanuda, Basic (hereby capitalized, to indicate that it is the subject of the sentence and not an adjective within the sentences, for my brain's continued functioning) has a few, overlapping and somewhat subtly different meanings. First of all, it's a gendered term (I ain't never heard of a basic bro, though I suppose there's potential there), but a weakly gendered term. Any motherfucker can make the argument that a man can be referred to as basic, but in the real world, we all know its exclusively used in regards to women. So, any slang term, intended to shame, and used on women, is always going to be (and I am loathe to use this word) problematic. But that has not even begun to stop me from whipping it out like it's a snowball at a congressional session on global warming.

Basic refers to consumer choices in regards to heteronormative, present day late- capitalism. (By the way-- can I just mention how pessimistic it is to refer to it as "late" capitalism?) Which is to say that basic refers to what you buy, and, importantly, what you buy into, the first in the overt and the second in the subtle.

The first is easier to wrangle with, and much less violent when used by yours truly, so we're going to start there. We live in capitalism, obvi, wherein trends are a considerable part of the market. That means seasonal trends (I am in this moment obligatorily mentioning the PSL. I am done now. Let us continue) but also means fashions and fads and what not, unrelated to the time of year. I'm going to use the example of walking into H&M, and H&M prominently displaying and advertising a huge kiosk of satin bombers. "You like bombers now!" H&M declares, apropos of nothing, and responding to absolutely no cultural trend that any of us know of. "These bombers are what you want! Buy bombers! Made of satin!"

We all remember the 90s, with varying degrees of clarity, so we at least know when we're conforming to capitalistic sensibilities and the whims of our capitalist overlords-- but no longer with the 90s revulsion towards said conformity (it was all hypocritical then anyway). In this context, to be Basic is to buy into the fads and the trends. This is the definition that  a person, such as myself, might apply to themselves. It's pretty Basic for me to buy H&M's satin bombers, and bubble tea, and pumpkins even though I don't have a stoop to put them on, but I still do it. I'm still a good little consumer in that way, spending my hard-earned dollars rather wantonly. To jokingly call myself Basic is to acknowledge that I know what I'm up to, and I know it's rather silly, but I'm still going to do it.

This first definition is the part where I have a problem when people use Basic as an insult. Who gives a flying fuck if someone else buys something they want with their own money? It also gets into this very age old idea, that nothing about women is private-- any choice she makes, no matter how little it concerns anyone else, is available for public scrutiny. That perhaps we shouldn't function this way, as a culture, is still a fairly new, and rather confusing idea. We're so used to having an opinion on everything everyone else wears and eats and reads that the idea that it's not our business is still uncomfortable-- but it's also beginning to take hold.

The way we seem to be culturally processing the idea that it's not our business to criticize other people's consumer choices is to self-deprecate; a kind of, "who among us is free to cast the first stone" response to cutting the difference between the smarmy congratulation of everyone's consumer choices all the time (Buzzfeed.) and overt criticism. Now, anything I buy that's trendy or part of a fad, I immediately use to refer to myself as basic, and then promptly forget about.

A quick note here, that I don't think that Basic is ever going to be co-opted by companies. The thing about Basic is that it, in regards to a product, it refers to the trendiness of that product, meaning that it's an implicit and inherent acknowledgement that PSLs or flower crowns or crop tops or coconut oil or whatever are a fad of the moment, and, like any fad, will go out of style eventually. No company is going to ever point out the inherently ephemeral nature of what they're trying to sell you (possible exception for food companies) because why would you buy something with the reminder that it will be useless in six months?

Now, as for the second definition of basic; the heteronormative definition, the more contentious definition, and the definition I use when I have no intention of being kind. In this context, I use Basic, frankly, the way venomous creatures use bright colors-- to tell people not to fuck with me.

The thing is, there is still a cultural weight of expectations put on women, regarding their behavior and their life choices. While the capitalist conformity of buying whatever they tell us is going to leave us all broke and in debt, this sort of conformity is more insidious and more damaging. It's kind of a know-it-when-you-see-it expectation, falling a long way away from the conservative expectations of the good ol' days, but a ways away from conscientious liberty too. That a woman will be a virgin when she marries is laughable, but she is absolutely expected to get married. That a woman speaks openly of being a feminist is a given, but she's still supposed to tenderly care for the feelings of all her male acquaintances, coworkers, etc. And as much as they might not seem so at the onset, this definition of Basic is still very much tied to capitalism. The expectation that a person will marry is not a neutral part of culture in a country with a billion dollar wedding industry.

I do not mean that here Basic refers to people who are just less liberal, less woke, less radical, less open-minded than you, or people who are more traditional. Not at all. What Basic is, here, is a way of nosing out just who is going to shame you for not quite conforming enough-- and then shaming them instead. A preemptive shame, if you will.

You use it like this:

I have a conversation with, let's say, Martha, our mutual acquaintance. Martha and I either don't get along terribly well, or do, but on a surface level. Somewhere in the course of this conversation, I get the whiff of just enough of Martha's thought patterns and prejudices and beliefs to know that she's going to make me feel like a weirdo and a loner for my less acceptable beliefs; to use an earlier example, Martha kinda thinks it's weird that marriage is not a forgone conclusion in my understanding of my future.

Now, as a human being-- truly, as homo sapien, the animal-- my only real motivation is to survive, which is to say, to not get kicked out of my tribe, which is to further say, to not be ostracized my social group. Therefore, its in my best interests to influence the climate of my tribe into a climate best suited for me. With those intentions, I turn to you, and when we're gossiping about mutual acquaintance Martha (which we all do, all of the time), I make sure to slip in that she's a bit basic, isn't she? and if I'm smart about it, I find a way to say it where I make you laugh, because a laugh is an agreement, and you can't take that laugh back.

The funny thing, you might actually agree with Martha, in your heart of hearts. The other funny thing is, I might like Martha, quite a lot. But now I've fired these warning shots, and now you're going to make at least a subconscious effort to not appear basic, at least around me-- and, probably around our entire group of mutual friends, just in case. It is in your best interests, again as a homo sapien, to make sure that people talking about you behind your back discuss you as positively as possible, again to avoid ostracism, and I have established, with just this one word, that adhering to these old, heteronormative expectations will not go by without comment.

It's fighting shame with shame. In my godless heathen liberal ways, I think it's generally a step in the right direction. I also think it's immoral as hell-- from a goodness perspective, absolutely no one should be calling anyone basic. But, when we're discussing survival and ostracism and tribalism, morality is the first thing that gets chucked out the cave window. Also, it's all well and good to talk the talk about third wave feminism and shedding cultural expectations for women, but in the practical world, things are going to be messy. If calling someone a basic bitch is unethical, and it is, well, so are any number of my capitalist choices-- eating meat, for example, wearing cheap clothing, failing to donate generously. Basic might be a tool of cultural shaming, but if I'm going to be shamed anyway, the least I can do is return the favor.

On a related note, this entire letter has made me crave Starbucks like you would not believe.

Yours in late capitalism,

ONION

[onionandartichoke]

THE GREAT MIDWEST

Dear Artichoke,

I've been thinking about what you wrote about Zanudaism.

I'm real curious to know who this acquaintance is (just tell me), but I found the idea in general quite interesting, of course. You've told me about Zanudas before, but it's got me thinking about language and cultural policing in a more general way. I can't speak to the Russian perspective, but I can tell you that the American modus operandi-- even as someone who doesn't have any other ruler to measure against-- is bananas.

English is a motherfucker of a language, because, to use an age old way of phrasing it, we don't mean what we say and we say what we don't mean. In other words, an English speaker is always going to communicate their message a little euphemistically, a little between the lines.

We hedge our bets when we communicate; we suss out what the other person might think before we say anything definitive. When we do say something definitive, it tends to be rehearsed, and it tends to be something we know the other person is going to be more than a touch uncomfortable disagreeing with-- unless, of course, they're some sort of non-conformist anti-establishment twit, in which case their opinion can be safely disregarded.

(Consider the example of the SNL skit, The Beygency. It's an entire skit predicated on the knowledge that you, the average American, is not at all comfortable saying the unrehearsed, anti-establishment line, "Beyonce is just okay")

As someone who grew up in the Midwest, though, I have to disagree with your understanding of the Midwestern stereotype of the Russian. Not to say that Midwesterners like Russians-- they don't. But, they don't like anybody. The Midwest is an area settled by people who quite literally couldn't handle the fact that their neighbor moved within twenty miles of them (please see: Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Frontier, etc). The stereotype of a Russian is of someone who talks too goddamned much. Specifically, Russians are known for TMI, and complaining a great deal.

I'm sure that seems very unkind of the Midwesterners, and yes, it is. But if it helps, it's part of the Midwesterner stereotype of everyone that they talk too much. It's merely a matter of what they talk too much about that varies. No one is stoic enough for the Midwest. Hell, Midwesterners' stereotype of themselves is that we talk too much. (I never know whether to refer to myself as 'we' when referring to the Midwest, which is why I switched mid-sentence there. I mean, I grew up in Minnesota... but raised by a Southern mother, and emphatically not of Scandinavian descent, or Lutheran, or drinking the kool aid, if you will. Most of my thought-processes and sensibilities have more in common with North Carolina's mercenary sense of imaginary practicality than Minnesota's delicate sensibilities and discomfort any time we have a real fucking conversation. Also, I don't live there anymore, and even if I were to go back, Minneapolis is culturally a different beast than Minnesota proper. But this is all an aside for a different letter for a different time)

Don't get me wrong, there is this idea of the ominously silent Russian, but I think that has more to do with Hollywood crafting bad guys (the Cold War was Hollywood's babydoll, yo) than what a Midwesterner thinks he'll meet on the train. The thing about Hollywood, of course, is that a) silence is scary, b) how much effort do you really want to put into developing this highly other-ed character, and c) they get to hide behind the excuse of the language barrier, so critics can't make fun of them for always having the same goddamned villain, a man of few words and a strong accent.

I could make the argument that a term like Zanuda can't really exist in the Midwest, because we would use it to describe everyone all the time, therefore rendering it obsolete.

The truly insane thing, of course, is that if you ask me, I have met considerably more than my fair share of Minnesotan Zanudas, and I've hated every one of 'em. The thing about a culture so determined to be so relentlessly stoic is that within that culture, you can't really tell someone to shut the fuck up, because any real ability to deliver criticism or engage in confrontation has been strangled out of the culture because we say as little of substance out loud as possible-- therefore allowing the people who are a bit clueless, or just don't care, an entirely free rein to talk as much as they want in the absolute confidence that no one will call them on it. The same thing happens with rudeness-- Minnesotan Nice is absolutely a thing, but the rude people are so infrequently called on their bullshit that they behave so rudely that a New Yorker would take umbrage. Then again, maybe my perception here is clouded by the fact that, like it or not, I was raised inside these cultural values.

But before we all throw our hands up at the Midwest's xenophobia in despair, I do want to point out that the flattened world of the Internet and social media is leveling the playing field in a major way. While Minnesotan baby boomers are the perfect model of everything I just mentioned, Gen Xers and Millennials are a touch more complicated. Don't get me wrong, they still have some of the traits of their parents, yet to be shaken off, but generally, they're much more affable, approachable, and even talkative than previous generations. The times, they are a-changing. 

As we can see, therefore, the cultural policing of language is a rather complicated thing, and for those Midwesterners, more than a bit fraught. I was thinking, as I read your letter, that I don't particularly care for language shaming. For example, the way you insult something in Minnesota is to say "That's different," which is the most annoying fucking thing in the world. The thing about cultural shaming is that you set up a rule, and then you enforce the rule. You don't necessarily have to explain to the person you're shutting up why the rule exists-- which also means that they don't have a chance to explain either why they're breaking the rule or that it's a stupid rule that shouldn't be enforced. The shorthands are useful in the moment, and often fascinating when you articulate what they mean and how they work and what purpose they serve, but it's hard to defend the continued use of a phrase such as "That's different" to tell someone, rather covertly, that you're going to shit-talk them until they're completely ostracized the second they turn their back. Obviously, language shaming isn't really a good thing-- if it was, we wouldn't call it shaming.

So. Why do I use the word basic so much?

TO BE CONTINUED...

Yours in Zanudaism,

ONION

[onionandartichoke]

ZANUDA

Dear ONION,

When having tea with my cousins this past weekend, I was describing an acquaintance to them who tells fascinating stories, and who is so interesting to listen to – if you have nowhere else to be for the next hour. Getting into a conversation with her is a bit like getting stuck in a charming and entertaining whirlpool. Personally I find it objectively fascinating to see the neat way that she dovetails every story or aside into the previous one, so that the conversation unfolds continuously, never allowing for a pause, and especially not the sort of natural pause that happens in most conversations, which most people need, and wait for, if they want to insert a benign conclusion to the conversation and thus go their merry way.

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

BREXIT AND AGATHA CHRISTIE

Dear ONION,

Since Brexit, the number of reported hate crimes in England has skyrocketed.

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

ON COMPOSING FOR DANCE (PLUS THOUGHTS ON THE MUSIC FOR TIFFANY MILLS' AFTER THE FEAST)

Dear ONION,

There must be a competent theory (or school of thought), somewhere out there, on the subject of composing music for dance – some sort of highly practical manifesto which is coherent, and thoughtful, and raises many good points, and works as an excellent guide to both choreographers and composers in terms of what they should expect from the collaboration, and what it is their right to demand – and the range of possibilities in that type of work.

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

AFTER THE FEAST

After the Feast is an evening-length project that fuses movement, music and visuals to imagine an urban dystopia caused by vanishing resources. Mills' highly physical movement and daring partnering propel the performers further into this dire situation – the next phase of human existence. In the work collaborators ask: Can a community emerge from an urban wasteland? What will remain after the final feast?

– artist statement, from the program for After the Feast

Dear ONION,

I write today in appreciation of An Hour-Long Dance Performance Which We Saw Two Weeks Ago, aka, Tiffany Mills' After the Feast.

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

ROOTLESSNESS

Dear ONION,

Today, as I left work, I slipped half a dozen books into my bag.

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

LE GUIN THE RECONSTRUCTIONIST

While deconstructions often end up darker, edgier, sadder, and more cynical than the normal version, there is no reason they have to be.

-TVTropes article on Deconstruction

The difference between reconstruction and deconstruction depends largely by what the end goal becomes. A deconstruction is about demonstrating the flaws of a trope or genre, and leaving it at that. It is a situation that has no easy out. A reconstruction offers a solution on how to fix the situation... Some works, naturally, will try to do both at the same time...

-TVTropes article on Not A Deconstruction

Dear ONION,

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

A WEREWOLF PROBLEM IN CENTRAL RUSSIA

Dear ONION,

I haven't read too many werewolf stories... but, that being said, my favorite one definitely is (and has been for a while) A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia.

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

BRIEF THOUGHTS ON GRACE PALEY, AMBIGUITY, AND OTHER THINGS

Dear ONION,

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

POLITICALLY NEUTRAL

Dear ONION,

It all started with what should have been an easy question to answer: why do so many people come nearly to blows over opinions about music, about art; about specific and individual performances?

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

HAPPY NEW YEAR’S, ARTICHOKE

Dear ARTICHOKE,

Happy New Year's, ya heathen! I am celebrating by cuddling up with my cat, the one who has thus far escaped death for yet another trip around the sun, and seems blissfully unaware of both how lucky he is, and how much effort I once put into making him escape that death.

Anyway, I am truly impressed with your most recent letter, and, specifically, with how much time and work you put into that letter (stalking the NYPL! My stars!) and into our blog in general. Kudos, my thistline friend! In return, I have decided to gift you with a letter written in like half an hour, that took me no work at all, except the work of google image searching a gif, that, if Tumblr is at all bitchy about letting me use, I will probably just ditch at the first hint of technological trouble.

I have, of course, spent my holiday season reading, because I have no friends at my parents' place except my undead cat and a very tired dog. Accordingly, I read two books that were both of the YA (I think? I never actually know if it's YA or not, unless it's blatantly obvious. Divergent, for example, could not be mistaken for anything but YA, as well as anything with the name "John Green" on the cover) and genre persuasions, The Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir and The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater.

I quite enjoyed both of them! But I do have a little note to make, regarding The Ember in the Ashes, which is that it is the first part of a series, and, unlike The Raven Boys, there's no indication of that fact anywhere on the cover. Now, I didn't know that either of these books were the first of a series when I started them, but in the case of The Raven Boys, that's because I apparently neglected to look at the cover, which marks it Part One of the Raven Cycle rather clearly. So that one's on me. For The Ember in the Ashes, I did look. I mean, I've read a fair number of secondary world fantasies, in my time, so I'm familiar with the general rule of thumb, which is that they don't usually take place in stand alone novels. However, that Part One of [x] was conspicuously absent.

And I have to ask, as one person who works in publishing to another person who works in publishing, why do we do this? I mean, I know why we do this-- readers might be a little leery about getting emotionally invested in a story of which only one third, or less, might be available at the onset, and where there's always the possibility the author will get run over by a bus, therefore leaving said reader hanging, forever. I can't help but wonder if at least some small part of the reason why we do this is because some of the most famous fantasy series out there-- specifically and especially, A Song of Ice and Fire-- have fallen into a forever-in-limbo state wherein the series remains unfinished, but children who were born after the first one was published are by now half way through college. Still, when you publish the first part of a series, before parts two, three, et al, come out, them's the breaks, kids, and that's the risk the reader takes. To not say so is to lie by omission, which is generally frowned upon when one is selling a product. So, the question does remain: why do we do this?

Furthermore, this increasing habit of neglecting the Part One of [X] creates the reader expectation that any new book of genre persuasion is probably the first part of a series, regardless of what it does or does not say on the cover, and that's probably not an expectation we want to be cultivating. Also, is it really true that readers don't like getting emotionally invested in part one of a series? I mean, it's a given that readers probably like waiting as little as humans in general like waiting (which is to say, they don't), but a series promises a story large enough, grand enough, emotionally complex enough, that it cannot fit into a measly 200-300 pages. I don't particularly care for that, because I am a pragmatic mercenary of a reader (as are you, Artichoke, with your unnatural love of short stories), but I've encountered enough other humans to know that I am not the norm in this. People-- and especially people who like genre-- like their stories big.

In terms of recommendations, I don't think The Ember in the Ashes is really your fare, but you might like The Raven Boys. On the other hand, knowing you, and given the cast of four arrogant boys and assorted others, you might really not like it. Only one way to find out! Chop chop!

TRB is about a psychic's daughter named Blue, who has been told by her psychic mother that she will kill her true love with a kiss (does this happen before the end of the first book? No it does not! Series). She eventually joins forces with four young men of varying levels of charisma, ostentatious wealth, and liveliness, who are, with varying amounts of enthusiasm, looking for the Welsh king Glendower, last seen in Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1, now, possibly buried in a lies sleeping, ready to be awakened Arthurian sot of way, but, in the wilds of Virginia. Shenanigans ensue.

From the start, the writing is excellent; Stiefvater knows how to put a sentence down, and she knows how to bring characters to life with vibrancy and multifariousness, and that without simply giving you a list of traits by which to tell one apart from the next. I mention this because it's the trap I thought she might fall into. The structure of the story is such that small groups of characters have the same general profile as one another; a collection of rich boarding school teenaged laddies here, a flock of psychic ladies there. In that sense, it is a book that is far more devoted to character than it is to plot structure, which is to say, it's not your schtick at all, Artichoke. Reading it will be something different, which will be good for you. Eat your vegetables, take your vitamins.

My biggest complaint, which is a spoiler, comes near the end when an injury results in one of the characters losing the hearing of his left ear, something that's mentioned a few times, and then promptly forgotten in the wake of the overshadowing matter, which is that the character in question is forced to compromise his principles. Which-- as someone who was once a teenager, and once stared down the barrel of losing the use of a body part, and that without actually losing it-- holy shit, no. Even when you're a teenager, and even when you're a stupidly stubborn one, like I was, I think you still have these ideas in the very far back of your head, this rational voice that sounds like your mother, saying "I am a changing, growing person, who may not think [these principles] for all eternity," and "I am the best of friends with this person right now, but things might change, and we may not be friends forever". Losing a limb, or the ability to hear out of your ear, or what have you, means really, truly learning what eternity is, and it's a rather unpleasant discovery. I was in the midst of the nastiest break up and friendship drama I've ever gone through, adult life included, when I was suddenly in the hospital with a team of medical professionals putting my leg back together, and you wouldn't believe how quickly everything else in the entire world suddenly takes a lower place on the priorities list. On the other hand, internal angst doesn't make for as good of reading as inter-relationship drama between characters, so. That said; Adam's hearing is probably pretty fucking important to Adam, even if the rest of us, readers and other characters alike, don't give a shit, so it was a bit startling to me how quickly we, the readers, were welcomed into forgetting that that injury had happened.

But. I've had complaints of that variety with many, many books in the past, and I'm sure I'll have that complaint with many more in books of the future.

It is, after all, the relationships between the characters, and that ultra-Americana, Virginia supernatural atmosphere, that makes the story work. In terms of the setting, there are places in the US, usually out in the countryside, and usually out in the east or the south, wherein the folklore-- most all of which seems to concern restless ghosts of the dead and disappeared and done wrong-- is more populous than the actual people, (you went to college in such a place, though I can't remember how much attention, if any, you paid to the Bennington Triangle twaddle) and it's enormously satisfying to see that atmosphere woven into a story. Furthermore, Stiefvater eschewed any of the supernatural ambiguity (you know the sort-- it could be ghosts! or it could be mental illness! the reader decides) that tends to mark this sort of genre-- there are supernatural forces at work here, and she fully embraces that, always with one eye on how it affects our characters' friendships.

This is the sort of book where the major selling point is that old chestnut of wish-fulfillment, friendship. (Note: do reviewers still bitch wish fulfillment out like it's incarnate of the devil, like they used to do in 2009? This is a genuine question). To be honest, this aspect of the book, and the fact that I really enjoyed myself while reading it, had me in identity crisis mode. Artichoke, am I lonely? I have friends! Just not here in Minnesota, except for my cat (see above). Oh dear.

More to be said, after you have read this, and after I have finished the series in total (last one comes out in 2016! I think).

Much love, and a happy new year,

ONION

O&A on Tumblr! O&A on WordPress! 

[onionandartichoke]

Who is Tiptree, What is He? (The full text of Robert Silverberg's infamous introduction to James Tiptree, Jr.'s Warm Worlds and Otherwise)

Dear ONION,

I've transcribed Robert Silverberg's entire introduction to James Tiptree, Jr.'s Warm Worlds and Otherwise – you know, that really infamous intro, the one with that well-publicized paragraph where Silverberg declares with full confidence that of course Tiptree is a man, you'd have to be balmy to think otherwise—

The introduction is at the bottom of this letter, in full.

Keep reading

[onionandartichoke]

PROPELLER BEANIES AND SCIENCE FICTION

"As Peter Nicholls observed of Le Guin's London speech, the silent figure in the elegant black velvet suit and the propellor beanie, rather nervously reading the prepared speech, quickly turned into a companion speaking directly to each of the six-hundred people in the ballroom of the Southern Cross Hotel. That directness survives onto the printed page. "The walls are down, we're free at last," she tells us. "Now that we're free, where are we going?""

-from The Language of the Night, collected non-fiction of Ursula Le Guin

"There I was, telling this guy that science fiction was a very serious branch of literature and deserved serious consideration, when I suddenly remembered I was wearing a beanie on my head with a little propeller on it. And the propeller was turning. Very slowly turning."

-Susan Wood, from In Memory of Susan Wood

Dear ONION,

Keep reading