Put the Used to Good Use

I was browsing around for a copy of Ace Combat 6 the other day when some guy breezed into the store and asked if they had a Wii. They didn't, considering that Christmas was only a couple of days ago, and it's unlikely that more than a handful of stores in Metro Vancouver had any up for sale, whether new or used. I could hear him grousing about the kind of person that would give something used as a gift - and really, I think that's one of the twentieth-century problems we desperately need to address in the twenty-first.

The twentieth century, it seems, had a mania for newness. On the face of it, it's not too suprising; it was the first century where the manufacturing sector had developed enough that anyone who wanted anything could get it fresh from the assembly line. Used goods, in that context, are castoffs - things that someone else has used until they can't use them anymore, or have gone beyond the need for them. I can understand why some people might see it as more like scavenging, or even picking trash up off the ground. But that doesn't mean it's right. The "used economy" has an important place today, and in the years to come I think it may become even more so - after all, you don't need to invest energy or resources in creating something that already exists.

Besides that, there's one big advantage used has over new - many used things, depending on how long someone else has had their name to them, just aren't available in the stores any more no matter where you look. This is especially true when it comes to the vintage clothing market.

I mean, really - would I be able to get an authentic '70s shirt this hideous in a store today?

The way I see it, there's nothing wrong with used - it has its own functional, low-energy niche. It has character, too, and can act as a reminder that there's more than just what's in the stores - that there's more to life than the present day. Right now, on my coffee table, there's a coaster from the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle that I picked up for ten bucks at a store in New Westminster's Antique Alley, and it's just got that sort of historic character that would be extremely difficult to find in a "new" store.

Plus, the thing is fifty years old and still in good shape - that speaks to how well it was made, even as a promotional item. Do you think the modern crap that gets shovelled out of Chinese factories today will last fifty years? A lot of it won't last five years - hell, some of it doesn't last five days without breaking or exposing some manufacturing fault.

Generally speaking, you don't find wrecked or broken things in a used market - you find things that people just don't have a use for anymore. There's plenty of utility left in them.

To Mend and Defend

For the past year I've been striving to deliver something fresh and wothwhile every day. For those that read this, I'm going to have to make an exception today - sorry! My main computer has been laid low by an untimely and STUBBORN infection bt the Vista 2010 Antivirus spyware virus, which has thus far survived all my efforts to remove it. At this point I think I'm going to have to go the System Restore route and be extremely thankful that I bought that external hard drive.

Honestly, though, it is one of the cannier viruses I've run across. There were barely any misspellings and it aped legitimate Vista appearances and it's probably voiced by Tony Jay. I, unfortunately, am failing pretty spectacularly at mending and defending.

Nevertheless, so this isn't entirely wasted - scientific perspective on just how stupid some aspects of stupid movies really are.

New Zealand, You So Crazy

As a prescript, I have been informed by a reliable local that in the argot of New Zealand, "lolly" apparently means "candy." Crazy, no?

I've been made aware, via Stuff.co.nz, of a potential controversy brewing in a kettle - which may yet end up on the front cover of the Globe and Mail - regarding an iconic brand of New Zealand lolly, Pascall Eskimos. The lack of a Wikipedia entry devoted to them indicates, to me, that they are very culturally specific to Godzone, and thus it makes perfect sense that the average Canadian would never have heard of them even in the wired world of tomorrow, today! Nevertheless.

The problem with these lollies, it seems, is that they're derogatory emblems against Inuits. They're shaped like, well, the sort of "stereotypical Eskimo" you'd expect to find in a Looney Tunes short from the 40s or 50s, bundled up in a thick parka with only the face showing any kind of detail. Apparently they taste rather like Peeps and are made mostly of sugar and food coloring. This may not have been a problem so long as no actual Inuits discovered these lollies. As the linked article makes clear that's no longer the case, and the Canadian tourist who's apparently at the center of this, Seeka Lee Veevee Parsons, is planning to send some to Prime Minister Harper. This may yet lead to some more epic shouting on the floor of the House during Question Period.

The manufacturer, as manufacturers are wont to do, are standing by their product - apparently it is "an iconic New Zealand lolly." That may be so, but icons don't appear overnight. They have in fact been around for fifty-four years, which incidentally explains why anyone might have thought basing a candy around a caricature of people of the Arctic fringes was a neat idea.

Still, being around for more than half a century does build loyalty, and I can understand why New Zealanders would rally around a marshmallowy plank of their culture. That doesn't mean the Inuit aren't in the wrong to be offended by it. This sort of thing has happened in the past, with products based on out-and-out racist depictions of black people, and the products in question changed themselves in recognition of the world having changed around them.

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason that this is seen more as a "damn foreigners getting in our business" story in New Zealand is because of the general low profile of the Inuit people. Even in Canada, they are rarely in the news unless there's occasion to talk about how Ottawa is screwing the North. Could it be that since that cultures in both New Zealand and Canada tend not to think of Inuits as objects of ridicule - further to the point, tend not to think of Inuits at all - it's affecting how people look at the situation?

"While this is all blown out of proportion, it's also a stick in the eye," said the aforementioned reliable local New Zealander. "Jane Foreigner sticking her big mouth into our childhood memories and dessert treats."

I can understand but I don't know if I can agree. Cultural wars tend to cut deeper than most other conflicts because the scars are purely spiritual. People can, and will, fight tooth-and-nail for an idea when purely temporal concerns don't faze them. In the end, they tend to produce the kind of solution you'd get from Thunderdome.

I'd be interested to know what you readers (I know there are at least *some* of you) think.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu Low Earth Orbit wgah'nagl fhtagn

I'm a man who has an interest in the promise of the future, and as a result I'm accustomed to disappointment. The Apollo Applications Program? Historical footnote. Space Station Freedom? A grand idea, never realized. The Delta Clipper? Obscure enough that I didn't even know about it until recently, after which point the confident non-fiction articles in 1980s issues of Analog were tinged with regret and lost promises. That's the main reason why, every once in a while, I'm staggered by the thought that a space station actually does exist.

The International Space Station is an incredible technical achievement, and it's my hope that in the years and decades to come - if civilization doesn't collapse in the interim, of course - it will be to the state-of-the-art as dugout canoes are to cabin cruisers today. None of that is what I'm concerned about today, though. I was looking at the station's mission patch, and I noticed something odd. Eldritch, in fact, you might say.


Look at that patch. The station itself is obvious enough, but the landforms took a little work; considering that the entertainment industry is centered in California, even views-from-space that focus on Europe can be disconcerting (in the sense of "hey, that never looked like that before"). Maps focused on Antarctica just aren't all that common, but once you see it it's fairly straightforward. There's the tip of Chile and Argentina on the lower right, and on the left there's Australia and New Zealand and then--

And then, in the middle of the South Pacific, almost squarely at Point Nemo, there's another landmass that doesn't appear on any map I own. I started wondering; what is this? The lost continent of Mu? Then I realized the truth - there's only one significant thing that ever existed in that lonely corner of the South Pacific: the nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh, where dread Cthulhu lies dreaming.

Is NASA trying to tell us something?

The Widdershin Ways of a Wikipedia Wanderer

I'm currently working on "On the Waltz," a short story that I do hope to finish and not leave in the "come back to this thing later, when you can think clearly" pile, which has grown tall and tilts more perilously than Pisa as of late. In describing a character, I found myself resorting back to Wikipedia, for fact-checking--

"Best behavior now, love," said one of the guards, a trim and flaxen-haired man who fit as well into the shardist ideal as a male model would have fit the cover of Soldier of Fortune.

Really, the only fact I had to check was what the proper name of Soldier of Fortune was. But from there the wandering impulse took over, and I ended up at the article on men's adventure magazines, a pulp genre I previously was unaware of but now seems like a great and unlamented loss.

I mean, look at it. How is it even remotely conceivable that something called "Swastika Slave Girls in Argentina's No-Escape Brothel Camp" could be anything less than awesome? Oh, back in 1963 I'm sure it was shlock, one form of tripe or another dashed off a typewriter (tripewriter?) for some cents per word that had far, far more buying power back then - but now? It would be hilarious. A glossy, iron-thewed version of The Eye of Argon.

I hope I never find that story, or article, or whatever it was; I don't know what I would do if it didn't live up to these expectations I created for it right this second.

Perhaps the Introductions Are In Order

I really wanted to be able to skip this.

If you're really lucky, you'll be reading this weblog at some point in the future, when you're already aware of the information I'm about to lay out. Right now, though, I can't take that chance. Look, I know you probably hate infodumps - most people do, including me - so I'll keep it brief. Then I can move on with the meat of it.

My name is Andrew Barton, and after eleven-or-so years of fancying myself a science fiction writer, I became one. My first published story, "The Platinum Desolation," is included in the anthology Return to Luna, published by Hadley Rille Books in December 2008. I'm not stopping there, either. I have very little doubt that this weblog will soon resemble the old Tacoma Narrows Bridge under the weight of the rejections I'll surely pile up for my other stories.

I also practice photography, though Canadian winter has put a real damper on that as of late. Each of the photographs which I take and post here will be released either to the public domain or via a Creative Commons license, as those things are pretty neat. You'll also be able to find ruminations, reviews, and other clips of commentary which warrant the effort of being distilled to their basics and typed up.

I think that's enough for today. I hate being didactic.