Wednesday, December 23, 2015

What I'm Reading: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Somehow I never read The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, despite reading Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers multiple times in middle and high school. Especially odd because at that time I tended to go deep on science fiction authors I liked, like Frederick Pohl and Frank Herbert.

But for whatever reason I never ventured further into Heinlein's oeuvre, and am making up for that deficiency now. And this is the big one. Along with SiaSL, this is one of Heinlein's best known, one of the ones that put him in the pantheon of the "big four" SF writers, along with Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ray Bradbury.

The book is set on the moon, mainly in Luna City, one of several cities run by the Lunar Authority, a highly rigid and hide-bound bureaucracy based on Earth to mine the moon for the benefit of Earth's citizens, leaving the moon's inhabitants impoverished and unfree. Nor do the citizens of Earth care, since the moon is peopled mostly by convicts sentenced to life terms on the moon and their descendants, called Loonies. Especially since the grain produced on the moon in vast underground caverns and shipped to earth via a huge launch catapult is critical for feeding the Earth's billions of people.

The narrator is Manuel O'Kelly-Davis, who goes by Mannie, a computer technician on contract with the Lunar Authority, who one day discovers the Lunar Authority's main computer has "woken up." The computer, who adopts the name Mike, isn't a bad sort, although he has a childish sense of humor (for instance, sending out a paycheck to one Loonie for $10 billion). Mannie is Mike's only friend; indeed, the only one who knows he is sentient, and Mike controls virtually every vital service provided in the various moon cities (air, water, transportation, finance, etc.). When Mannie's friend, Professor de la Paz, gets him mixed up with a lunar independence movement, along with the beautiful revolutionary Wyoming Knott, Mannie is able to get Mike on their side, giving them a ghost of a chance to defeat the Federated Nations of Earth and earn freedom for the Loonies.

The moon in anarchic society--but not disordered! Because the Lunar Authority doesn't provide law, caring only if the grain shipments keep coming, it's up to the Loonies to determine their own way of living. This is where Heinlein's libertarianism comes in, which this book really explores. Justice, for example, is privately-administered. A judge is someone mutually acceptable to both parties, the fee for hearing a case is negotiated, the defendant chooses whether he wants a jury or not, based partially on if he wants to pay, with payment perhaps scaled to parties’ income. Poor judges don’t get repeat business, competition keeps prices low, balancing of interests ensures justice is achieved. Actually, the way Heinlein describes it makes our own system of justice seem fairly clunky.

The Loonies also have come up with alternative ways of arranging families and romantic matches. Mannie is part of a "line marriage," where a new husband or wife is brought into the family every few years, alternating by gender. Yes, that means there are multiple spouses, ranging in age from late teens to old age. His marriage has been around for more than 100 years, and he points out it works well for a farming family, as his is, because it allows for the accumulation of capital across generations. Like the privately-administered justice system, it may seem weird, but Heinlein describes it in such a way that by the end of the novel it seems quite natural, even preferable in some ways to our own way of doing things.

This book is not for everyone, but those it is for will really get into it. On one level, the story of the revolution itself is pretty exciting, and Mannie, Mike, the Professor, and Wyoming are likable characters who are easy to root for. But deeper than that, it's a novel packed with ideas, expertly presented so you hardly realize Heinlein is showing you how a truly libertarian society could work. It's those multiple levels that make this one of the all-time classic science fiction novels.

Monday, December 14, 2015

Place Names in Rock Lyrics: Girls, Girls, Girls

We've previously done Sweet Little SixteenDancing in the StreetsNight TrainRock'n Me, and Pop Muzik, so tonight let's get classy and do some Motley Crue! The song is Girls, Girls, Girls and was a biggish hit for the Crue in 1987. It's basically a tour of their favorite strip clubs in various cities.

I might add this song has a personal connection for me because when I was in the 9th grade, I took a tennis class at my school for my P.E. requirement. A buddy of mine and I played every day with some seniors on the farthest court, and one of the seniors would park his Jeep just outside the tennis court and open the doors, blasting this album on his stereo while we played. The coach mainly stuck to the other set of courts closer to school with kids from the tennis team, and didn't seem to care too much what we got up to. It was great.

Here's the first verse. It doesn't actually have any cities, I just wanted to note that it's a clear allusion to (is that too fancy a word for the Crue? How about "They ripped it off from") Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright For Fightin'."

Friday night and I need a fight
My motorcycle and a switchblade knife
Handful of grease in my hair feels right
But what I need to make me tight are

And the chorus:

Girls, Girls, Girls
Long legs and burgundy lips
Girls,
Dancin' down on Sunset Strip
Girls
Red lips, fingertips

The second chorus gets into the cities. Note the Seventh Veil is in Los Angeles (according to Wikipedia, not my personal knowledge!).

Girls, Girls, Girls
At the Dollhouse in Ft. Lauderdale
Girls, Girls. Girls
Rocking in Atlanta at Tattletails
Girls, Girls, Girls
Raising Hell at the 7th Veil

The third verse and chorus have more cities. The Body Shop and Tropicana are apparently also in Los Angeles, and the Marble Arch in Vancouver.

Crazy Horse, Paris, France
Forget the names, remember romance
I got the photos, a menage a trois
Musta broke those Frenchies laws with those

Girls, Girls. Girls
Body Shop. Marble Arch
Girls, Girls, Girls
Tropicana's where I lost my heart


Okay, so the cities we have this time are
Atlanta
Ft. Lauderdale
Los Angeles
Paris
Vancouver (admittedly a stretch since it's not named explicitly in the song, but I'll count it)




_______________________________________________________________________
And here's our master list as it currently stands:

Notes: The biggest cities we haven't heard from yet, as least in the United States, are Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, and Seattle.

Atlanta x3
Baltimore x2
(northern) California
Chicago
Detroit
Ft. Lauderdale
London
Los Angeles x3
Miami
Munich
New Orleans x3
New York City x3
Paris x2
Philadelphia x4
Phoenix
Pittsburgh
Raleigh
Richmond
San Francisco
St. Louis
Tacoma
(heart of) Texas
Vancouver
Washington, DC x2

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Secrets, Lies, & Sighs: New Anthology from the Writers of Chantilly Released!

We all have secrets, parts of our pasts we’d rather keep hidden. Inside the pages of this anthology, you’ll find secrets uncovered. A church confessional come to life, who knows what you’ve really been up to. A happily married woman reflecting on a college romance, and the unexpected revelation that ended it. A private school principal who finds kicking a student out of school may lead to public revelations of his own unsavory past. These secrets and more lie hidden in these pages, waiting only for you to discover them.


The new anthology from the Writers of Chantilly, Secrets, Lies, & Sighs, is available now at Amazon.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Place Names in Rock Lyrics: Pop Muzik

We've previously done Sweet Little SixteenDancing in the StreetsNight Train, and Rock'n Me, so tonight let's add M's Pop Muzik. This was an international number one hit in late 1979 for English band M, basically consisting of singer Robin Scott and studio musicians. The song has a definite New Wave sound with lots of synthesizers and a drum machine beat. It will also add some international cities to our list.

Verses are sort of "pop music" nonsense lyrics, like so:

Sing it in the subway
Shuffle with a shoe shine
Mix me a Molotov
I'm on the hit line

While the chorus is this, which may have slight variations but, for our purposes, the same cities are repeated every time:

New York, London, Paris, Munich
Everybody talk about, mm, pop muzik
Talk about pop muzik
Talk about pop muzik
Pop, pop, pop muzik
Pop, pop, pop muzik

So the cities we have in this song are:
London
Munich
New York
Paris

_________________________________________________________________________
And here's our master list as it currently stands:

Notes: The biggest cities we haven't heard from yet, as least in the United States, are Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, and Seattle (but we do have Tacoma!).

Atlanta x2
Baltimore x2
(northern) California
Chicago
Detroit
London
Los Angeles x2
Miami
Munich
New Orleans x3
New York City x3
Paris
Philadelphia x4
Phoenix
Pittsburgh
Raleigh
Richmond
San Francisco
St. Louis
Tacoma
(heart of) Texas
Washington, DC x2

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Bleak Peanuts

This Sunday strip from March 1954 shows Charlie Brown at his most impotent:


I really feel for him here. I mean, he could slug Patty, but I bet he's already internalized a code against hitting girls. What can he do but rage silently, and push it down inside?

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Place Names in Rock Lyrics: Rock'n Me

In this feature, we've previously done Sweet Little SixteenDancing in the Streets, and Night Train. Tonight, as promised, we'll balance out the East Coast-centric Night Train with a song with lots of West Coast cities. The song is Rock'n Me, released in 1976 by the Steve Miller Band.

The second verse contains the sort of city list we're looking for:

I went from Phoenix, Arizona
All the way to Tacoma
Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A.
Northern California where the girls are warm
So I could be with my sweet baby, yeah

Are the girls especially warm in northern California? We'll take Steve's word on it. That verse is followed by the chorus:

Keep on a rock'n me baby
Keep on a rock'n me baby
Keep on a rock'n me baby
Keep on a rock'n me baby
Baby, baby, baby
Keep on rock'n
Rock'n me baby
Keep on a rock'n
Rock'n me baby

Okay, not a real intellectual song, but it's fun to listen to and sing along with. The second verse is repeated again later, with no change in the city list. So here are the cities we have in this song:

Atlanta
Los Angeles
northern California
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Tacoma

_________________________________________________________________________
And after four songs, here's our master list.

Notes: Philadelphia is the only city mentioned in every song so far. Is Philly as especially musical city? Rock musicians seem to think so. I think the biggest cities we haven't heard from yet are Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, and Seattle (but we do have Tacoma!).

Atlanta x2
Baltimore x2
(northern) California
Chicago
Detroit
Los Angeles x2
Miami
New Orleans x3
New York City x2
Philadelphia x4
Phoenix
Pittsburgh
Raleigh
Richmond
San Francisco
St. Louis
Tacoma
(heart of) Texas
Washington, DC x2