Time Crunch

I'll be leaving for Ireland next week and hope to post some while on the trip but I have no idea how our time will be and how often I'll find an internet cafe. Ireland is not cheap by far, and Dublin is one of the most expensive cities in Europe. I'm going with my sister and we'll be spending a day or two at most in Dublin. Advice by Irish people I've met is that you don't need longer there.

So far, even before going, transportation has been a bit of a tangle. We booked through Air Transat because it was cheapest by far but having flown to Cuba before on that airline, they really like to cram you in. I think I'll be going for strolls while on the plane.

The flight goes to Glasgow and then you need to book one to Dublin. Well, no problem. Everyone says Ryanair is really cheap. There's Aer Lingus but it's a tad more expensive (like a lot!). We didn't rush in booking because we wanted to coordinate it with the car rentals and when our first flight would arrive. And before that we took two weeks to find suitable and cheapish accommodation in Dublin. Not that easy and you have to check various sites as the price can vary.

I have friends in Glasgow and Erin happened to ask if we were flying to Dublin from Glasgow International or Prestwick Glasgow airport. Errr? I'm so glad she asked as we fly into Glasgow (GLA) and Ryanair only flies out of Prestwick. Then we have to take a train and a bus or taxi from one to the other, and it takes about an hour. Our heads were starting to spin by this time.

We arrive into GLA at 2:30 pm but the only Aer Lingus flight leaves at 10:30 pm. But if we get to Prestwick, then there's a flight at 5 or at 10:30. Is it cheaper with all the hassle and train/bus fare, plus after customs would we make the 5 pm flight? Or should we bite the more expensive bullet? (Aer Lingus has a lower baggage weight so do we pack for that flight and extra pounds can become extra pounds British!) Erin suggests that we have dinner with them and then can catch our flight out.

Once we get through this nodule of confusion, I'm sure the rest of the trip will be fine. But what a logistics headache. I now wish that I'd gone with a travel agent but they can't book Aer Lingus or Ryanair flights. After this, we'll be more experienced on travel to Ireland.

The Coolest Thesaurus Ever

Ireland looms close with some snags in coordinating transportation. I'm working three jobs at the moment with little time to post. I do hope that I can post a bit when I'm in Ireland.

But in the meantime, this is the greatest thesaurus. I'm going to order it once I'm back. It's like a mind map but with the word you pub in at the center. Then adjectives, verbs, nouns, whatever are spaced off of it. It's best just to go look because everyone who's seen it has gone, wow.

Visual and intuitive and easy to follow. It's a great tool: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/trialover.jsp

September 11th and the Holy Crusade

It is now six years since the Western world was slam dunked and woke up to the reality of the horrors that other parts of the world have suffered for a long time. There have always been terrorist attacks and bombings but this was the first time North America truly faced it without the sugar coating.

I can say, to this day that I have never seen a picture or TV spots of the Twin Towers falling. I still don't need to. I don't need to satisfy any ghoulish craving and the horror of what happened is strong enough I don't need it welded in my mind more firmly than it is. I felt a terror that day that I had never felt before.

And what difference did it make? Yes, it woke me up some. But am I any more prepared than I was 6 years ago? Prepared to have my world changed, prepared for the worst, having contingency plans and supplies tucked away? No, I'm pretty much complacent like many of us have become. Except our governments.

And yes, it is a government's job to protect its people but when protection is masked under the removal of civil liberties and the mass paranoia, well what is the government's true agenda; keeping the rats distracted? And I talk more here of the US, but Canada, Britain, Australia all have their complicities. We now have strident and ridiculous measures at airports. First, we had to start taking our shoes off because someone tried a shoe bomb. Then we had to start getting rid of extra liquid, because someone tried a bomb made of various liquids. Someone will end up with a tooth bomb and we'll be dropping our fangs in trays at the airport security stations. And then someone could use a tampon, a button, an earring, a belt. Soon, we'll be going through naked and there will still be new attempts to make bombs.

Right now I could take a plastic knife, or a shoelace and make a weapon and I'm not trying to be an "evil terrorist". If someone truly wants to create carnage, there is always a way around the system. Methods of sensible security are one thing but ridiculous paranoia does not inspire me with confidence of my country's intelligence or protection.

And then of course, six years after the fact, we look at George Bush's holy crusade that he likes to title his war on terror. Perhaps it should be reworded to his "war to perpetuate terror "as it's a matter of who is terrorized now. That I heard Americans saying ole George was doing the right thing in attacking Iraq and saving them from terrorists makes me shake my head at the stupidity. How many of the 9/11 terrorists came from Iraq? How many Al Qaeda operatives are being trained in Pakistan today, not in Iraq? What nationality is Osama bin Laden?

Osama sits back and laughs his head off knowing that he was more effective than he could have dreamed in his attacks. Lets look at the numbers (still disputed). Those dead from the 9/11 attacks--approximately 3,000. US soldiers killed in Irag since the 2003 US-led invasion--27,000 plus. Iraqis killed since the 2003 US-led invasion--655,000. Good going, George. You're doing Osama's work for him. He's sitting around sipping his favourite terrorist drink while you're his lackey dog.

I'm not saying Iraq didn't have a despotic and cruel dictator in power but it would have been nice to see countries helping the Iraqi people for the right reason, not some idiotic holy crusade of right wing Christian fundamentalism against right wing Muslim agression. I'm not saying that Afghanistan didn't need help. It did for years as its people were subjugated, especially the women. But it was never important enough (can we say, no oil) until George's war on terror. (This phrase makes me gag these days.)

What have I learned since Sept. 11? That nothing has been done for the right reason, to save people from fear and subjugation. What has been done was to take the terror away from here and put it on others, to push an agenda for power and religious might, for popularity. And if anything George Bush, you are the antichrist and your own worst enemy.

It really makes me wonder if there is any honour or good in the world. And I still mourn all the lives lost in power mongering wars and religious crusades, the world over.

Submissions for August

A friend was aghast or at least surprised that I would post my submissions here. That I should only post the postive stuff, the sales I've made. But I think it serves a better purpose to post it all and I see no reason to hide how many submissions I make or are aceppted or rejected. Maybe it will give someone faith to keep going. Some of the most popular books were rejected 100 times before being accepted by a publisher. So... you never know. And I often try to rewrite a story if I get back good (if sometimes painful) feedback. So the same title does not always mean the same story.

SUBMITTED IN August: 15 Spec fiction: 8 submissions
"Visions in Red” Strange Horizons
”Visions in Red” Abyss & Apex
“Fathomless World” IGMS
“The Collector” Noctem Aeternus
“Simple Pleasures” Red by Dawn anthology
“Bite Me” Heliotrope
“Lady of the Bleeding Heart” Sniplits
“Misdemeanor” Scarlet
“Touch the Magic” Clarkesworld
“Gingerbread People” Weird Tales
“Skin Deep” Neo-Opsis
Poems: 4 submissions
“Garuda’s Gamble, Robotics, Drowning Ones” Aeon
“Charmed” GUD
“Tales Never Told” Sybil’s Garage
“Pilot Flight,” “Millennium’s Edge,” “Time,” “Remembrance” Mythic Delirium

ACCEPTED:
REJECTED: 7 submissions (& 2 poems)
“Ice Queen” Speculative Realm
“Timebubbles” Withersin
“Slow Burn” Cincinnati Review
“Changes” IGMS
”Visions in Red” Abyss & Apex
“Highest Price” Glimmertrain
“Safe Sex” New Genre

“Charmed” Poem GUD
”Talesen’s Traps:” poems 1-4 From the Asylum

STORIES STILL OUT from January on: 15 & poems
Spec Fiction: 9 sumbissions
“Werewolf,” “Pumpkin’s Watch” Lycanthrope anthology
“Serpent’s Mouth” Pagan Fiction Award
“Cold Bones” Story Station
“Amuse-Bouche” Deathlings
“Lady Lazarus” Interzone
“In the High Tower” On Spec
“An Ill Wind” Talebones (resubmitted-not found)
“The Brown Woman” All Possible Worlds
“Rites of Passage” Dark Discoveries
Erotic fiction: 2 submission
“Pearls and Swine” Fishnet
“Unpacking Boxes” Super-Sexy Short Story
Fiction: 4 submissions
“No Place to Go” American Short Fiction
“Bird in the Hand” Pulpnet
“Sackcloth and Ashes” Fog City Review
“Elastic” The Sun
Poems: 5 submissions
Ø “Secrets of Trees”, “Garuda’s Folly”, “Negotiating the Power that Drives Me Round,” “Dark Side,” “A Match for Nostradamus” Strong Verse
Ø “Courtship,” “Whole World,” “What Goldilocks Learned” Going Down Swinging
Ø “Persephone Dreams,” “Finding Dionysus,” “The Traveler,” “Geomystica,” “Of the Corn” Tin House
Ø “Sweat Lodge,” “Between the Lines,” “Dust,” “Evidence,” “In the Garden” Agni
Ø Rewrite asked for on “Mermaid” Abyss & Apex

Little Words & Zed

I've worked many years as a copy editor and have a fairly good memory for spelling. It's amazing really that we ever standardized the English language, if you take into account that there's British English, American English and the bastard child of both, Canadian English. AE and CE say "synchronize" instead of "synchronise", but BE and CE say "neighbour" instead of "neighbor" and "travelled" instead of "traveled." There are a few other odd words such as "jewellery" vs "jewelry." But mostly we can understand each other even if Canadians say "zed" and Americans, "zee." I'm an adamant proponent of continuing the "zed" pronunciation (being Canadian) and when some little tads corrected me with saying, "It's zee." I pretty much bit my lip and corrected them since they're Canadian. Alas the invasion continues.

So is it any wonder that there are so many misspelled words considering that Shakespear spelled his name so many different ways? Of course a lot of this had to to with relative illiteracy. If you didn't write regularly, even if you knew the rudiments, you weren't very likely to spell things correctly.

As an editor, sometimes words are so often misspelled the same way that I start to doubt my own senses and look up words that I know are spelled incorrectly. Here are a few words of the modern age that are mispelled frequently:

• burgundy (not burgandy for colour or wine)
• indefinitely (not indefinately, received three times last week) if it's not finite then it's indefinite like infinity .
• no one (not no-one nor noone)
• its (the most misused word ever: if it is blue then it's blue. If something belongs to it, then it is its.
• twenty, thirty-something (twenty-two not twenty two)

I find it particularly bad when I read books that have many misspellings but it all depends on how good the publishers are at maintaining quality and if they care. Many small publishing houses do not even have copy editors and depend on (demand) the authors to proofread their work. Of course everyone should always do that and hand in relatively clean copies. Still when you're looking at a story over and over again you are bound to miss some of your own typos. A second set of eyes is always best.

Musings From Tibet III

This is the last part of Angela's email on Tibet:

There are many arts that come out of Tibetan monasteries, some of which I have pictures of here. Some of my pictures are from Rekong which is actually thought of as the art capitol of Amdo (this upper region of Tibet), possibly even of all Tibet. Mostly they are famous for their thangka painting, which unfortunately I didn't get to photograph, I only have pictures of the buildings and stupas there, but they are pretty amazing, intricately painted and carved, etc. From Labrang monastery I again have many pictures of the buildings, but I also have some pictures of cham dancing, and the butter sculptures which are both really fascinating art forms. The cham dancing is done by the monks, and it portrays stories of great events in the history of Buddhism. Sometimes it's the lives of the great masters, or sometimes the bringing of scriptures from India, mythical tales, etc.

The butter sculptures are incredibly intricate and colorful, in this case mostly of great Buddhist masters such as Tsongkaba (founder of the Gelukpa sect), Shakyamuni Buddha, etc., also lots of flowers, and other ritual shapes. The amazing thing about these is that they really are constructed from butter (in case you couldn't guess that from the name). They make these once a year just before Losar, then keep them throughout the year.
Speaking of butter, food in general seems to be a central theme in Tibetan culture, more so than most other places I've seen. The second you enter a house you are offered (practically forced) tea, and bread or whatever other food is sitting around. To refuse is not rude, but it is not really accepted. No matter how full you are, it's near impossible to get by without at least drinking a cup of tea. This became an entire art form for me, and a very difficult one at that - the art of refusing food. But another thing that I noticed was the fact that whenever I was taking pictures, having food around was essential. If I took a picture of a single person, they usually needed to have a full cup of tea in their hand, and at least a bowl overflowing with bread in front. When I was taking pictures of Jinpa and Gonpu's (Shedhe's cousins) homes, they made sure that they moved the bowls of food around so that they were in the picture. After all, if I brought pictures of their homes back to India and there was no food around, they might get worried that their families didn't have enough to eat. Food heaping is an art for them as it isn't enough to just fill a bowl with fruit or bread, it has to be heaping so high that it looks ready to collapse if you so much as speak next to it. But alas, after years of practice, it is actually very stable.

You will notice that in the pictures, most of the women wear long strings of red beads around their necks. These are traditional for nomad women, especially in Amdo. They are made out of red coral which is becoming more and more rare in Tibet, and I was surprised to find out that each bead costs between 100-400 Chinese yuen (there are about 7.7 yuen to one US dollar right now). As there are often a hundred or two of these beads on a necklace, the price is oftens imilar to buying a house. This is the way that women literally wear their wealth around their necks as a status symbol. Gold is also very popular, though I recently found out from one of my friends here that gold is a new thing, probably brought in by the Chinese. Apparently at least in some places 10 years ago people only had silver but now gold has become the big thing. Obviously its much more expensive, so again a status symbol. I'm not sure when this came in, as Shedhe values gold much more than silver (we argue about that often as I don't particularly like gold, but he doesn't like silver, he thinks it looks cheap) and he's been here for around 7 years, but one of my friends here said that in her village (which is only a few hours from Labrang) she never even saw gold and she's been here for around 12 years. Fashion amongst the nomads is very important, and they use it as an opportunity to display their wealth. I was also intrigued to find out that each different village, even if they are only an hour apart from each other have their own distinct fashion. To my eyes it mostly looked the same, but everywhere I went people were telling me that I looked just like a Senko nomad (Senko being the place where Shedhe's family is from) even when they had no idea who I was staying with. Not only the style of sewing the clothes was different from village to village, but also the way that you tie the chupa/tsarer is different. I not only learned to tie mine from mother, but the ones that I wore were also hers, thus why people recognized the area I was living in. 4 hours away, in the town of Rekong the chupas looked very different, even to my untrained eyes.

I was amazed just how different Tibet was from Dharamshala. Being in India I thought that I was learning a lot about Tibet, and though I was, it was nothing compared to actually being there. I could go on for hours about Dharamshala and how/why the people there have changed, but that is an entirely different paper.

The thing that I noticed most about Tibet was just how Chinese it had become, and how much it will continue to do so. In Tibet, I had to be careful to even mention the Dalai Lama, and certainly did not dare to utter the words "Free Tibet." But while in Dharamshala, I went to many protests for Tibetan freedom, and lived in a city of people who every day fight for it with every fiber of their being and live every day of their lives for the news that they and their families are free at last. After so much of that, I started to believe that it was a possibility. How could it be possible that so many people around the world were fighting for something so noble, and have it not come to fruition? It just didn't seem possible.

I remember walking home from teaching one day in Tibet, seeing all the Chinese signs painted on walls, the kids in Chinese clothes, all the modern technology and the food wrappers strewn on the side of the street. I started thinking about it, and realized that no matter how much I did not want to admit it, I think Tibet will never really be free from its Chinese colonizer. Though Tibetans work hard to preserve their culture, it is dying out with every new generation, becoming more and more Chinese practically by the minute. China has invested a lot into making Tibet what it is; they just built a new railroad all the way to Lhasa, have set up a huge tourist industry, recently discovered some sort of large Ore or Iron deposit and have made a lot of money out of the natural resources there. China is an incredibly powerful country, so powerful that nobody in the world, including the US will stand up to them. To them, there is no reason to give up Tibet, but there is lots of reason to keep it. Upon this realization a very strong sense of grief flew through me, and as I walked into our home to see this old conservative nomad family that I loved so dearly, I nearly wept for the loss that they have to endure every day. Not only have they lost their son Shedhe to exile, but every day they have to watch the destruction of their culture and religion, and live in terrible fear of the people who have surrounded them. I've heard stories of the things his parents had to endure after the Chinese occupation (they were relatively young when it happened, but the brutality lasted for a long time), and I see the physical scars and deformities from it on their bodies. I see it in their faces and hear it in their voices. Though conditions there are much better now than they were for a long time after the Chinese first came in, it is still a daily struggle. Already they live in a climate which itself makes living difficult, but now they are prisoners in their own lands.

Musings From Tibet II

Earlier, I posted excerpts with permission about Angela McDonald's time living in Tibet. This is another installment of her journey, which she wrote after returning to India. It's especially apropos after the students who were arrested in Bejing for unveiling a flag that said "Free Tibet" on the Great Wall:

I was living in a village called Tanauk which is abouta 15 minute walk away from Labrang Monastery, and beyond the monastery is the city of Labrang or Xiahe(Chinese name, probably spelled it wrong). Shedhe'sbrothers still live in Senko, the nomad grassland which is about 20 minutes from Tanauk. He grew up there, but his parents moved into the city maybe 10 years ago so that they could take care of their grandkids while they were in school. Labrang monastery is enormous, with nearly 2,000 monks studying there (though the Chinese technically put a 1,000 cap on the admittance.....the people have to come up with interesting tricks to try and hide that one). Though largely destroyed during the cultural revolution, it has been mostly rebuilt and is considered to be one of the greatest monasteries in Tibet. I helped Jinpa write a brief history of the monastery so learned a lot about it, but I will spare all the details. Basically, it is a really huge and important Gelukpa (one of the 4 major sects of Tibetan Buddhism, the sect the Dalai Lama also belongs to) monastery which is also the central monastery for the surrounding area.

Most of the houses (including the one this familylived in) were are made out of what appeared to be mudcovered wood. The Tibetans are famous for buildings made out of pounded mud. Some newer buildings are now made out of bricks in the Chinese style, but most were still mud, especially for Tibetan families. The mud seemed to take fairly constant upkeep, and many mornings I would see mother or our neighbor dragging a big stone wheel across the roof to further compact the mud (it looked like a primitive steam roller), and take more mud to fill in cracks or damaged spots. When they were doing this, pieces of mud would fall in from the chimney holes in the roof or through the wood planks on the ceiling. Inside, the walls, ceiling and floors were solid wood. It was really beautiful, but I would often worry as the wood didn't appear to really be treated (with anything other than dirt), and Shedhe explained that often the wood rots and needs to be replaced. Water is constantly poured on the floor to keep down the dust (especially in the winter, homes for the nomads as the floors were just dirt, so it was constantly wetted to keep the persistent dust down)and the floors were also very uneven, the boards raising up in one spot and flat down in other places. It was easy to stumble when you awoke in the night drowsily stumbling to the toilet. There were several rooms in our house built around a central courtyard; one was used as a small apartment which another man and his son lived in, one was the room with a hole in the ground serving as a toilet (mostly I used it; usually the others just went outside) and also held all the dried sheep and yak dung (which fueled the cooking stove), one room was for storage, one had a stove especially for roasting tsampa, and then ourf amily lived in three of the rooms. In the courtyard of every home is at least one ferocious dog which acts as the doorbell (built in with person recognition, a different bark tone for every call at no extra charge), home security system, compost, and garbage disposal. In all the rooms which people lived in there is what looks like a standard wood stove but is fed with animal dung, and is used for cooking and heating the house. Sometimes the stoves are also made out of pounded mud, and those are only used for cooking, but others were made of metal and used also for heating, with a tea pot of boiling water or tea constantly on top.

The Tibetan people are incredibly religious, especially the older families such as the nomads. I found it interesting that the lay people actually knew very little about Buddhism, but they know that they have to go by the ceremonies, holidays, and rituals, etc. that were tradition for the religion. Lamas (similar to priests or monks for Christians) are consulted to do mo (a form of divination or fortunetelling) for everything in life from marriages to debating about going to a hospital or not, which business opportunity to take, etc... Every morning some form of prayer and offering is done at home as every home has its own small altar inside (including a picture of the Dalai Lama which surprised me), and during the day at any free moment, the older people have prayer beads in their hands (similar to a rosary) and are chanting mantras or going gorah(circumambulation - prayer by walking clockwise around a monastery, temple, or stupa). Everything in their lives has to do with Buddhism. I read in "My Land MyPeople" by H.H., the Dalai Lama that around 10 percent of the Tibetan population are monks or nuns. A large percentage of families have at least one member living in a monastery/nunnery. When a monk comes to your home special food is made, they are given the highest seat in the house, and every demand is served with care. Some of my friends who were monks avoided going to other peoples' homes very often because too much of a fuss was made over their presence.