Observing Las Vegas: Part 1

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Earlier this month, I spent five days wandering around Las Vegas as one of the approximately 153,000 attendees of the CES trade show. For those not involved in the tech industry (or who don't care about tech at all), this is the annual Consumer Electronics Show, which exists to help vendors promote their new and upcoming product lines to buyers, sellers, journalists and other tech professionals. 

Like thousands of others, I stared at the elaborate booths and less elaborate booths (the photo above shows one of the booths in the process of being built), and met with vendors who tried to convince me that their new products were the best thing since the vacuum tube. I also tried to simultaneously get from point A to point B, check where my next appointment was, figure out how late I was, and examine some of the other booths around me without crashing into too many other people doing exactly the same thing.

However, one thing I like to try to notice when I go each year isn't how the tech industry is doing, but how Las Vegas itself is doing. Over the years I've been going there -- first, for the Comdex industry show and now for CES -- the city has undergone several phases. When I started, it was just starting its "Las Vegas is for families" phase; building hotels like New York New York and MGM that were made to appeal to both parents and kids; building amusement parks in the back of hotels (I think it was at the MGM, but I don't remember for sure)... While the gambling and other adult entertainments were still there, the newer hotels were pushing for a cleaner look.

After a while, that waned, and somebody decided that Las Vegas was the town for sophisticated high rollers. They forgot about families with kids and started building hotels that were absolutely for adults: huge, glitzy, and featured expensive shops and gilded hotels/gambling areas. The result was hotels like the Aria and the Wynn, where the shops and the restaurants are Fifth Avenue prices and higher.

Unfortunately for Vegas, it was about this time that the economy crashed. Building projects stopped dead; conventions were cancelled or cut down drastically on the number of hotel rooms needed (I remember two years ago when all the inflated hotel prices were suddenly cut in a desperate effort to stop the number of attendees who were backing out). And pushing high-class and high-cost hotels and restaurants turned out to be one of the worst-timed moves that any city could make.

So what is Las Vegas like now? From my point of view, not nearly as healthy or as much fun as it was. And I'm stressing that it's from my point of view, because there are several factors that are affecting my opinion, including the hotel I stayed at, looking around the city as I drove from hotel to hotel, talking to cab drivers (one of my favorite activities in Las Vegas), observing the number of people in the casinos...

But enough for now. I'll continue on this theme later...

Chana Perle Novick (my mother's mother)

Those of you who may have read my story "The Red Dybbuk" in the anthology Subversion will remember the photos that Marilyn has of her grandmother Chana. Well, I was visiting my mother a couple of days ago, and by chance came across two old photos: one of my grandmother with her parents and younger brothers as a child (she had several older brothers, some of whom had already left home) and one of her as a young woman. Because a lot of my fiction is based either on stories I've heard about my grandparents -- or on stories I've imagined about them -- I thought I'd try to fit the photos to the prose. 

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In this first one, my story has the grouping wrong -- my grandmother is being held by her father, not her brother -- but the description is still apt:

"A 10-year-old boy in short pants and cap carefully holds the hand of his sister, 8 years old and already showing the stubborn press of lips that, Marilyn remembers, lasted into old age."

-The Red Dybbuk
Subversion: Science Fiction & Fantasy tales of challenging the norm


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My grandmother is the young woman leaning forward on the left, being photographed with a group of friends. This must have been just before World War I broke out.

"'So, what happened?' asks my grandmother patiently. Her long dark hair, uncovered in defiance of her religious upbringing, is pinned precariously up behind her head. The skin on her face is firm, with only a few small lines around the eyes and mouth. I stare, amazed at her youth." 

Subversion reading tomorrow!

In case you'll be in the NYC area tomorrow, I'll be reading with two other contributors to the Crossed Genres anthology Subversion at the SoHo Gallery for Digital Arts tomorrow (Tuesday, September 3rd) -- and you're very welcome to come! Here are the details:

The New York Review of Science Fiction Readings
presents
Subversion
Kay T. Holt
Barbara Krasnoff
Daniel J. Older
hosted by Bart R. Leib

Tuesday, January 3, 2012 -- Doors open 6:30 PM
$7 suggested donation

The SoHo Gallery for Digital Art
138 Sullivan Street  (between Houston & Prince St.)

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Being a poet. Or not.

Back when I was in high school, I thought I might become a poet. I had already published several poems in four anthologies: Miracles: Poems by Children of the English-Speaking World (edited by Richard Lewis); The Wind and the Rain: Children's Poems (and offshoot of Miracles); It is the Poem Singing Into Your Eyes: Anthology of New Young Poets (edited by Arnold Adoff); and Voices of Brooklyn: An Anthology (edited by Sol Yurick). A pretty good list for somebody under 20.

However, something happened in college - basically, I changed my mind. And it was for a rather trivial reason: I realized that, for the most part, I didn't like poets (at least, ones in my school). I found them to be pretentious and rather boring; of course, at 18 or 19, I was probably pretty pretentious myself, but I like to think I wasn't quite as bad as they were. 

The last straw was when a young woman in a poetry class completed her final by doing some "performance art" that consisted of her dancing around the classroom and shaking her ass enthusiastically to an audience of appreciative young male writing teachers (there were at least three watching by the time she'd finished; two had wandered in during the performance). She got an A in poetry. I started writing short stories.

Occasionally, though, I do backslide, and one of the results -- a poem called "Memorials" -- will be in the spring issue of Poetica Magazine, which publishes contemporary Jewish writing. (I knew it was going to published; but I just found out which issue it would appear in). So I guess I didn't completely abandon that particular muse after all.

SF Signal reviews Subversion

Okay, here's where I get to do some kvelling (for those not into NYC Yinglish, Merriam-Webster Online defines kvelling as "to be extraordinarily proud : rejoice"). SF Signal recently reviewed Subversion and gave my story "The Red Dybbuk" a very nice write-up:

What happens when old family ghosts infect your daughter with not their personality, but their ideals? It's a simple question, extrapolated into a very remarkable story....On an equally powerful level, the story explores the agonizing process of being a parent and having to watch your children grow up, find their way, and get hurt. It's a story that explores big social and political ideas, but never once loses its core story about family.

Good reviews feel nice. <g>

SF Signal: Daniel Abraham's Private Letter from Genre to Mainstream

A fun and rather accurate note from one lover -- Genre -- to another -- Literature (from SF Signal):

But allow me this, dear: what you do is crueler. You take the best of me, my most glorious moments - Ursula LeGuin and Dashiell Hammet, Mary Shelly and Philip Dick - and you claim them for your own. You say that they "transcend genre". There are no more heartless words than those.
via sfsignal.com

Subversion is now available!

Well, I've finally finished helping to assemble Computerworld's annual gift guide (which isn't quite out yet), and have a few minutes to announce the availability of the anthology Subversion: Science fiction & fantasy tales of challenging the norm, from Crossed Genres Publishing -- in which my story, "The Red Dybbuk" appears. A trifle late -- the anthology premiered on December 5th -- but better late, etc. etc.

Seriously, I'm very proud to be in this anthology. First, because it's just got some really dynamite writers; I'm about halfway through it (I'm embarrassed to say; you'd think I'd have read the whole thing by now), and I'm just blown away by these stories.

Secondly, I've got to say the timing is pretty good, all around. These are stories about people who subvert the established order, either purposefully or simply by being who they are. Which is very much what is happening around us today.

Anyway, it's available as a paperback (from Amazon), Kindle e-book (also Amazon) and Nook e-book (Barnes & Noble). If you feel so inclined, try it out....

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My copy of Subversion

As if to console me for the two story rejections I got recently, I got my copy of Subversion: Science Fiction & Fantasy Tales of Challenging the Norm in the mail today. I'm very psyched; there are some great stories in there (not all of which I've read yet); and I even got a bit of ego-boosting when I saw that a short selection from my story "The Red Dybbuk" was the one that that they chose for the back cover. (It's due, by the way, to go on sale December 5th.)

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Good words about fat girls in strange lands

Sabrina Vourvoulias has written a lovely and deeply felt blog entry about her feelings concerning society's attitude toward fat people. The reason that I found the entry -- and I'm glad I did -- is because she referenced the upcoming Fat Girl in a Strange Land anthology, which is being published by Crossed Genres and in which both she and I have stories.

She writes:

Images of beauty and ideas about worth are formed by families and peers, cultural norms and societal pressures. Centuries of fine art (and, indeed, ancient and folk art) tell us that the large, fleshy body can be both beautiful and powerful, but since the middle of the 20th century neither perception nor societal norm has favored the corpulent.


It's definitely worth a read.

New SUBVERSION book trailer

The second in the series of book trailers promoting the upcoming anthology Subversion has been posted -- this one features author Kay T. Holt, who explains how she is in a constant fight to subvert the absurd corporate dress code in her company. (As somebody who has never been able to handle high heels, I support her completely!)

Subversion will be available on December 5th.

 

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